Google always surprises its users and I think that makes Google special. When they launched Gmail they did not give any news about its launch date. So it was a surprise when users could have One full GB of storage space ( At that time a Hotmail account had 8 MB storage ). And Google did that launch on April Fools Day ( April 1 ). Do you know what Google usually does on April 1st..? They cheat its users. Last year Google cheated by promising a free internet access system through the water network of the toilets. But in 2004 they offered Gmail which many of the uses thought was a fake offering, but that created lots of speak about Google and ofcourse Gmail.It increased the word of mouth popularity for Gmail.
And back to the matter, Google is maintaining that level of secrecy to updates made in Orkut too. Gmail had not updated orkut for a very long time. But now they are doing it almost every week. I was amased when one day a new notification window came up, telling me that I had a new scrap. That was an update to Orkut. Then one day Updates from other users started coming on the Orkut home page.. oops another update. And one day I visited the settings page. Hey there was another bunch of updates there which I had not noticed. And I am sure many of you would have noticed these updates and would have wondered why Orkut did not tell me about this update.
I think Orkut needs to tell its users of major updates on the Profile Home page just like the way they give security tips they can add another bar to display updates when they are present. Then all the users can take advantage of the new features.
Some of the new additions are :
* A Notification Window that pops up when you get a new scrap
* Updates From Friends displayed on your Home page.
* Now you can hide the birthday reminders on the Homepage
* You can hide your updates
* You can hide profile vistis ( you wont be shown in their ' Recent visitors ' coloumn )
* You can set the visibility of your scrapbook, videos and photos, testimonals and feeds. You can limit the visibility to your friends alone
* You can show/hide your Orkut information in Google search
See your settings page to get hold of these updates. And yesterday, it was my mother's birthday. Its a nice thing that her birthday fell on the valentines day. She is my valentine for ever. lol
b.
