Sometime back, I mentioned that I was invited to join the networking site Facebook by two of my friends, MHP and AD (both of whom were already on Orkut, to which I was also subscribed). Since I was not convinced about maintaining yet another site, I tried [yes, tried would be the right word rather than conducted, given the small number of respondents :-)] a survey of the popularity of Facebook. I sent it to all my "friends" on Orkut, and posted it on my blog as well.
As soon as I sent a mail to the Orkut junta, one of the friends [MHP] who had recommended Facebook, got back to me, rolling with laughter, "dont believe u r taking a popularity poll on this one..."
A few days later, when he asked me for the results, I had to reply with a certain disappointment:
"What poll results?! Out of the 100+ friends I have on Orkut, only 5 bothered to reply. I am wondering if there is any point of any of these networking sites at all!"
The summary of responses from Orkut and Blogger (along with the most interesting responses):
Do not use Facebook (5)
- Have no idea(4)
- Have heard of it(1)
don't use facebook, never heard of it and to be honest am tired of so many sites inviting friends etc. i guess there more sites than i have friends :D
Use both (5)
- Prefer Orkut (2)
- Prefer Facebook (3)
I use facebook a lot and it is much cooler than Orkut and has got good interface and a very addictive "update your status" field. In my opinion Facebook is lot better than Orkut and given a choice, I will go for Facebook. But for some reason facebook is only popular with foreign people while Orkut is full of Indians e.g. I have only one Indian friend on Facebook. This is the only reason why I am still using Orkut.
Neither (2)
- Never signed up (1)
- Got disillusioned (1)
I've an Orkut account - and have stopped using it now...
Though we can find good old friends, it's total time-waster...
The conclusion:
If I assume that ~100 Orkut friends who didn't reply to my message are unaware of anything called Facebook, I can safely conclude that Facebook is not popular amongst my friends. The general feedback I received echos this - people who tried out Facebook, find that it has nice features compared to Orkut, but since they are much more likely to find [Indian] friends on Orkut, they maintain the account there. This is working as a cycle - since there are already so many people on Orkut, newcomers prefer Orkut. It appears that Orkut is more popular in India, Facebook in Europe, and Myspace in US.
I ended up creating an account on Facebook, specially since I wanted to see the large number of photos MHP had uploaded on Facebook. There seemed to be a lot of "fun" things there, but I felt out of my depth, since there was too much to do, and the interface was not easy to use. I remember that I found Orkut very easy and intuitive to use when I first joined it about two years back (when it had not yet been bought by Google). Ironically, at that time, there were not too many people on the network, so after few months I got bored and deleted my account.
And this is what AD said a couple of days back:
I don't get much time for facebook either and now that the initial excitement of the innumerable applications has subsided, I don't log on all that much.
The bottomline is, since my sole purpose to enlist on a social networking site is to get back in touch with lost friends, and I am more likely to find them on Orkut, and I find it easy to use [I dont bother with fancy applications], I stand by Orkut.
As soon as I sent a mail to the Orkut junta, one of the friends [MHP] who had recommended Facebook, got back to me, rolling with laughter, "dont believe u r taking a popularity poll on this one..."
A few days later, when he asked me for the results, I had to reply with a certain disappointment:
"What poll results?! Out of the 100+ friends I have on Orkut, only 5 bothered to reply. I am wondering if there is any point of any of these networking sites at all!"
The summary of responses from Orkut and Blogger (along with the most interesting responses):
Do not use Facebook (5)
- Have no idea(4)
- Have heard of it(1)
don't use facebook, never heard of it and to be honest am tired of so many sites inviting friends etc. i guess there more sites than i have friends :D
Use both (5)
- Prefer Orkut (2)
- Prefer Facebook (3)
I use facebook a lot and it is much cooler than Orkut and has got good interface and a very addictive "update your status" field. In my opinion Facebook is lot better than Orkut and given a choice, I will go for Facebook. But for some reason facebook is only popular with foreign people while Orkut is full of Indians e.g. I have only one Indian friend on Facebook. This is the only reason why I am still using Orkut.
Neither (2)
- Never signed up (1)
- Got disillusioned (1)
I've an Orkut account - and have stopped using it now...
Though we can find good old friends, it's total time-waster...
The conclusion:
If I assume that ~100 Orkut friends who didn't reply to my message are unaware of anything called Facebook, I can safely conclude that Facebook is not popular amongst my friends. The general feedback I received echos this - people who tried out Facebook, find that it has nice features compared to Orkut, but since they are much more likely to find [Indian] friends on Orkut, they maintain the account there. This is working as a cycle - since there are already so many people on Orkut, newcomers prefer Orkut. It appears that Orkut is more popular in India, Facebook in Europe, and Myspace in US.
I ended up creating an account on Facebook, specially since I wanted to see the large number of photos MHP had uploaded on Facebook. There seemed to be a lot of "fun" things there, but I felt out of my depth, since there was too much to do, and the interface was not easy to use. I remember that I found Orkut very easy and intuitive to use when I first joined it about two years back (when it had not yet been bought by Google). Ironically, at that time, there were not too many people on the network, so after few months I got bored and deleted my account.
And this is what AD said a couple of days back:
I don't get much time for facebook either and now that the initial excitement of the innumerable applications has subsided, I don't log on all that much.
The bottomline is, since my sole purpose to enlist on a social networking site is to get back in touch with lost friends, and I am more likely to find them on Orkut, and I find it easy to use [I dont bother with fancy applications], I stand by Orkut.
7 comments:
me too. And Orkut is constantly adding new features. Like now it has allowed to upload more than 12 pics. I have seen one of my friend uploaded 24 pics, but i still donno what's the max limit. Do u knw?
Like this comment : But for some reason facebook is only popular with foreign people while Orkut is full of Indians
I will say it depends on the way you want to maintain the social networking. Facebook has many more features than orkut, you can communicate in many innovative way, unlimited fun. Some of my foreign colleagues are addicted; Whereas Indians prefer simple tool and written communications. They are more comfortable on the medium their friends are already registered and easy to use. I guess there are some other reasons that we have discussed in your earlier post. Both are good. Orkut is simple and easy, Facebook is full of features and bit complex, one need to invest some time.
I need to read all your posts before I comment. Sorry for being late but happy to see that you tried some creative writing. Take care Sigma.
I can't comment on this post as you know very well in which category do I fall. ;)
BTW, you have been tagged. Aah what a feeling to find a victim. ;) Check my blog.
Also, expect a mail from me in a few days (if I get time). No, nothing to do with this tag.
@Maverick: Yes, you are right, they have been adding new features. Though it is perhaps a far way behind in terms of plug-n-play applications. I have seen upto 35 photos, but I didn't know the limit. Searching through the help section gave the answer: You can add upto 100 photos:
http://help.orkut.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=11817&topic=10300
@Pijush: right you are, but who has all that time?! :-) I cant even manage my google reader on a weekly basis :-)
@Cuckoo: I know you get a sadistic pleasure out of finding victims :-D
Though I'll do this one with pleasure. But my name didn't yield anything interesting, just a lot of books on "six sigma" :-P
Ok!! Waiting for your mail!!
Yes Sigma, its tough to clear the reader and I hope I will get sometime to go thorough the backlogs including your post. Soon going to tag you for something and for sure this time you will not be disappointed.
Hi
I stumbled across your blog from my friend Pijush's blog..
I am an out & out Google fan. As you said, their interfaces are so intuitive and easy to use. Another thing I like is that they are always working to add something more, something new to their products. Platforms like Orkut, Blogger, Gmail, Picassa etc are continuously evolving and providing richer user experience.
It was very nice reading this post! It is interesting you much effort you have put into it :-)
@Pijush: Looks like you have cleared a lot of backlog :-)
Seen your tag, will try to do it soon, though I have done a similar one before :-)
@Ananda: thanks a lot for dropping by. Yes, I too am a fan of Google - they do everything in style :-D
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