Hmm, So, Google is busy cooking something that would make it stand in front of the Giant facebook. Rumours have it that Google is gonna roll out something big this time. A decentralized social networking code named maka-maka is gonna be the next big thing from the GooglePlex.

So what do we mean by decentralized social networking?

To know what that term means, you need to what a centralized social networking is. Well, Centralized social networking refers to the conventional way of online social networking where people register on a website and that website solely hosts the entire network. Everytime you need to login to you network, you need to login to that website. It is exactly what we are doing at the moment through the likes of Orkut.com and Myspace.com and other such sites.

On the other hand, decentralized social networking refers to a network which is not only hosted on the central server but also communicates with the other small third party applications through two way APIs. Two way APIs benefits both the parties, as third party application can mine data through that API and the central server will get some more info. which may include how the data is being used third parties and inturn bu the endusers. Facebook has shown similar kind of model which lets developers to build applications over their platform.

How they are going to implement this thing?

Well, Google has always been tight lipped about their coming projects. But some secrets however are always leaked inspite of those Non Disclosure Agreements aka NDAs. SO how they gonna implement that thing? To me it’s no rocket science to do that. If they interconnect all their services like Feed Reader, Bookmarks, Gtalk, Orkut, iGoogle in a smart way providing open APIs to third party developers and keeping in view the privacy of users, the outcome of that will be a network which itself is nothing but a Decentralized Social Network.

Why Google needs Maka-Maka?

They have many reason to roll out something like that. Firstly, they are out of race in the bid war of facebook. Secondly, they need to take their social Graph to the next level which would help them serve better targetted ads and inturn make them money.

So all in all whoever makes it to the top whether Google or Facebook or Blah Blah. One thing is for sure, we, the end users, have good time ahead.

Sorry for not updating this blog for quite some time, I was really busy with my other projects during past few months. Tricks4fun.com has always brought tips, tweaks and tricks. The blog has mainly talked about social networking sites especially orkut. We talked about tips and tricks related to orkut. Now I think it’s time for us to draw ourselves towards other social media sites too.

But why only Social Networking ?, we could have talked about tech gadgets and other technical tips, tricks. The reason being that social networking sites are for every one, from students to housewives and from rich to poor. Social networking sites have brought people on an even platform where everybody enjoys his own space, privacy and interactions with others.

With six crores registered members. Orkut is doing great in terms of traffic and reveneue, and above all it has helped Google to raise their social graph to the next level. Orkut is very popular in south asian countries, Brazil and Latin America. But it has failed to impress people from United States and UK. The reason could be either the orkut could not become viral in USA and UK as it did in some south asian countries and Brazil. The zones where orkut is popular are denesely populated areas of the world which even helped it in becoming a Viral thing.

With orkut becoming more and more popular. Other social bookmarking sites also came into the picture, with likes of friendster, bebo. MySpace has already a large maket share and it seems to continue occupying that much for atleast another few years.

A large event happened in social networking phase when facebook got world’s attention. Facebook brought forward a complete new idea and made a platform where developers are free to create their own applications which could help them in promoting their own websites and other ventures too. WIth that kinda platform facebook is here to stay for long. With facebook, people keep getting new applications and hence new features unlike in other similar social networking sites.

Now with facebook taking over the internet, we can expect Google to do something to take orkut to the next level or atleast somewhere near to Facebook. And as expected they seem to have taken the path of openness as they will be announcing some open APIs for orkut.com which would let developers to orkut more seriously than ever. More developers means more features, more features means more buzz.

So, Social networking is here to stay. The platforms can change, their marketing strategies can change but their popularity is not gonna go anywhere down.

It was easy for all orkut lovers to switch to facebook, and why not, facebook is easy, amazing, with more features and simply a new internet. I can find all my orkut friends on facebook these days. With the immense potential facebook is showing with its open-ness, Google is forced to do something which can put breaks on the facebook hype. Not only because they want to maintain their monopoly in the webosphere, but also because they have realized that they need to take their social graph to the next level.

Orkut Applications with Open Orkut APIs ?

Rumors have it that Google is set to bring forward some cool APIs that will allow third parties to build application over their products. With orkut being the best social graph aggregator for google, it’s needless to say that they are planning to launch Orkut API too. So what does an open API means? It does mean a lot. WIth such kind of openness we can expect a large volume of innovative and entertaining applications built on orkut platform within a little time. Web savvy people will then take orkut seriously and will try to get on the ‘open’ train.

Orkut Vs Facebook

Orkut will then become an interesting place like facebook where we will see new applications everyday. It will be good not only for the users but also for the google. As more as more people will join orkut, better will be their data mining and better they will serve their “contextually geo targetted personalized ads”. Orkut is hugely popular in south asia and is still growing. But except asia only brazil and latin american people have shown some interest in orkut. Google will try everything to make sure that orkut provides them enough data from through out the world, so that they can build up a giant social graph.

If sources are to be believed, Google will launch the new open API on 5th of november. These API will let you buil applications in the form of embedded widgets and web services. Lets see what what Google has for all the orkut lovers.

Its Official, our own orkut.com has been chosen the MTV youth icon for the year 2007. This is very good news for all orkut lovers, it’s been our collective effort that this popular social networking site has come to this stage. We must thank Google for providing such a wonderful tool.

Orkut has changed our life in some way or the other. We remain in touch with our old friends with the help of orkut. I was amazed to see its nomination in MTV youth icon award, after a bit of thinking i realized that it’s the true youth icon. Having tough contenders like Rang De Basanti, Abhishek Bachchan and Multimedia celphones, orkut came out of the crowd and got the crown.

It’s pleasure being on orkut.

Google has been critisized in the past for orkut’s ugly looks. I must say it was the ugliest of all the social networking sites. But the much awaited new orkut’s new look is on the way. Still, not all the profiles are seeing this new design, only a small percentage of members are able to see it as of now. But day by day they are allowing more and more orkut members to feel the new design. I won’t call it a redesign, they have just updated and upgraded the old design.

Those rounded corners give a cool web 2.0 look, and streamlined and glassy interface looks good. It’s still not the best but okay something is better than nothing. One more feature was expected from google which is add different colored backgrounds to the orkut, or may be in the form of various cool looking orkut themes. So, that members can change their theme whenever they want. Let’s see may be google come out with this feature in few months.

Orkut has been tweaking and adding new features from time to time, some of the most awaited features included adding images and videos in the orkut scraps, or in short sending multimedia scraps. And at last orkut has come with something like that, now you can easily make your scrap multimedia and you don’t even need to re-invent the wheel for that.

Adding images to orkut scraps

Copy and paste urls ending in .jpg, .gif, .png or .bmp and the image will appear in the scrap. For example, http://abcdegf.com/xyz.jpg . orkut will automatically parse these links into the live images. I think this feature might make orkut more ugly. But still, that was awaited from long back.

Adding videos from Youtube and Google Videos

Copy and paste the url and the video will appear in the scrap. For example, http://youtube.com/watch? v=xbfgs78 > Google is way too smart, they are integrating all their tols together. Though google videos has been off’ed now.

Adding sound files and songs

Copy and paste the url of an audio file and an audio player will appear in the scrap. For example, http://abcdegh.com/xyzpqr.mp3. I liked this feature the most.

Adding html-embeddable objects to orkut

Um.. not sure too many people wil be able to utilize this feature because the HTML people is only limited. Nice feature for web savvy orkutters by the way. You just need to paste the html embed code in orkut scraps to share it with your friends.

Hi, today i am listing some of the latest orkut proxies. Some of you might know about these ones but i think many of you don’t. All this proxies look similar and support all the features of orkut.com , like scrap sending, sending invites, mesaages, karma settings etc. etc.
Ok so here the list goes:

Orkut Web
Orkut Live
Easy Orkut

This proxies are working on most of the places but i think in UAE these proxies have been blocked by the system administrator, don’t worry i will keep updating the list. Enjoy the proxies and enjoy the orkut.com, will be back with lots more just stay tuned to tricks4fun.com

Almost all the orkut proxies that i talked about in my previous posts have been blocked and filtered. And i know you guys were waiting so impatiently for me to update you with some more working orkut proxies.

So do not worry, here i come with one more fully functional one that is EasyOrkut.info, this orkut proxy as its name suggests make your life easy when orkut is banned in your schools, college, offices or any other work place. EasyOrkut.info supports almost all the features except that it still does not allow you to scrap back through that small text box that opens up while normal orkutting. But you can always scrap back to anyone by opening their profiles through this proxy. Something is indeed beeter than nothing, isn’t it?.

Alright, i am back to orkut tips and tricks. This post will review a new blog named orkut tricks and orkut proxy. Orkutproxytricks, regardless of its bulky keyword rich domain name provides a great resource for orkut lovers under one roof. The blog is all about otkut and ways to enhance the surfing experience. It will talk about all the latest orkut tips and tricks, javascripts, greasemonkey sripts, orkut pros and cons, skins just everything.

In addition this blog wil keep you updated with the latest working proxies around. As you know orkut is blocked in quite a few countries like Arab Emirates, Iran etc., and it is generally not accessible from school, colleges and offices. Subscribe to their rss feed to have all the stuff right there into your inbox or in your feed aggregator. Overall, it’s a one stop orkut encyclopedia for we all orkut lovers.

OrkutProxy.in is the latest working orkut proxy i found today while stumbling. Unlike other proxies it supports all the features of orkut.com, other social networking sites like myspace, bebo, facebook etc. are all very well accessible though orkutproxy.in. It is the fastest orkut proxy i have seen so far, the surfing is so fast as if you are accessing the web sites directly. I am sure there is a very powerful dedicated server working behind this one.
That’s all for today, keep checking for new and latest orkut proxies. Till then..

Proxy4orkut is another working orkut proxy i found today, it is one of only few working proxy for orkut. There are so many proxies on the web, but only a few of them are working for accessing and unblocking orkut. As i said earlier also orkut login is quite a complex thing in reality, so proxy scripts like phproxy and cgi proxy are not compatible with orkut. In fact is somehow any proxy is able to do that orkut login, you would not be able to do even simple things like scraps, karma and all that. It is because of the excessive use of javascript onCLick bottons.

But this orkut proxy is fully functional in every respect, you can do just anything you would be doing without proxy while accessing orkut. Will update you with more working orkut proxies, just stay tuned.

So, at last i have found a great working Orkut proxy that will allow to access orkut even if it is blocked by your network administrtor, or you are browsing behind any firewall or something. Proxut.com does allow you do orkutting with almost all the features running., the most importantly it allows you scrapping which is indeed the main stay of orkut.

I have seen so many proxy sites which claim to access orkut but in reality you can’t even login into orkut with most of them, the reason behind this is that orkut login consists of series of redirections and authentications at four different levels, and it’s always difficult for any proxy site to be compatible at such levels. Even if some proxy sites are able to login into the orkut, you would not be able to do anything more than that. These sites would not be able to do even simple things like scraps and messages.

Proxy.com is just the right proxy site i have found for you. Try it ..

You can check the location of all your orkut friends by using the orkut friends map feature. This feature uses google maps to let you see where all of your friends are living around the whole world. Orkut friends map combines the power of google maps with orkut profiles. You need to follow these simple steps to use this cool feature in orkut:

1. Click the view friends link in the my friends box on your right on the orkut home page.
2. Now click on the friends map tab at the top of the page.

You can now click on a friend’s profile picture to see their location on the map shown. Please know that if we don’t have map data for a particular region or if your friend chose not to put their location in their orkut profile, you’ll see a message “(not on map)” below their profile name.
Please know that if we don’t have map data for a particular region or if your friend chose not to put their location in their orkut profile, you’ll see a message “(not on map)” below their profile name. You can also click on the “tiny little blue men” to see your friends’ locations. By clicking on one of these figures, a bubble will pop open to let you know which friend lives in that location.
When you are signed in to orkut account, you can use this cool feature directly by using this link. http://www.orkut.com/Map.aspx

You can hide your orkut profile name with this new trick. The old trick alt+0173 does not work anymore. Now get invisible on orkut.

᠌

Follow this simple steps to make yourself invisible on orkut

Click on the above blank textbox
Press Ctrl+c ( yes for copying )
Open your orkut profile edit page
Then in the name and last name text box. Pres ctrl+v or you can right click -> paste.
Enjoy this fun orkut trick.

Change the look of orkut by installing these cool looking orkut skins.
But first You need to install:
1. Firefox Browser
2. Greasemonkey Plugin

You can see an awesome collection of cool looking orkut skins here, and all of those can be downloaded from here.

“Inside Orkut” has also featured some good orkut templates
namely pinkut, bluekut, creamkut etc. etc.

How is it done?
Greasemonkey is used to add some extra bit of coding to webpages, coding is done in javascript. So all these scripts are coded in such a way that on being properly installed they will execute themselves whenever you visit orkut.com page. I myself is very fond greasemonkey userscripts and event tried my hands on it a few days ago. You can read more about greasemonkey plugin for mozilla firefox here at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greasemonkey

For low speed connections logging in to orkut or gmail could becomes an irritating task. You must have experienced gmail login problem especially on a dial up connection. Login in to gmail is comparatively slower because of its rich user interface, because of that sometimes the gmail login screens gives an error. And in orkut also sometimes the login box does not appears and says “connection timed out” or “server not responding” kind of messages. Following are some tips and tricks to login into gmail and orkut faster even with low speed internet connections.

Gmail login tricks

- Use HTML version of gmail instead of standard version. You can access to gmail’s HTML version directly from this url http://mail.google.com/mail/h/
- Also try gmail mobile version via http://m.gmail.com ,it is very lo-fi version of gmail but the speed of logging in really fast, it is opening instantly on my system. The mobile version of gmail login page is simple, fast and furious. So no more gmail login problems now.

Orkut login tricks

- Directly open the small orkut login box from this url, it will skip the homepage of the orkut which consists of some images and worthless text. It really works, so try it

Now you can access orkut from those place where it is generally blocked by the system administrator. You must have seen “access denied” message that come up whenever you try to access orkut in your offices or colleges or even schools,
I have found some working orkut proxies that will you to login into your orkut account. Proxut.com is the latest working proxy for orkut

Working Orkut Proxy :-

- OrkutWeb.info
- OrkutLive.info
- EasyOrkut.info
- OrkutProxy.in
- Proxy4orkut.com
- Proxut.com

- A proxy by orkut itself http://images.orkut.com
- Also try http://images3.orkut.com
- http://www.atunnel.com
- http://www.kproxy.com or http://62.193.235.46/
- http://calculatepie.com
- http://bravebadger.com
- http://www.torperkut.com/

Please tell me about other proxies that worked well in your case. I’ll update the list whenever i find any other alternative for accessing orkut.

Orkut scrap book searcher is a firefox extension that adds a search box on your orkut page. With this search box you can search for any text, username or sentences in scrapbooks and in communities. User can also search for the data in the specified date range. Help box below the search box will help you in understanding all its features.

Install this Firefox Addon/Extension from here
Or you can use this search box through greasemonkey plugin, the user script for the greasemonkey plugin can be installed from here

1. Writing a star in your orkut scrap - Write & # 9 7 3 3 before your scrap without spaces in between these characters. And see a cool star icon that comes up in the scrap on submitting.

2. Writing scraps in reverse - Add & # 8 2 3 8 before your scrap without spaces in between these characters. The whole text will get reversed on submitting it. Isn’t It Cool.

3. Make yourself invisible on orkut - In MS Paint, create a smallest image possible and then upload it in internet explorer. It will be unclickable and you are invisible now. Voilla ..!!

4. Adding cool symbols in orkut scrap -

alt + 987 - █, alt + 1 - ☺, alt + 2 - ☻, alt + 3 - ♥,

alt + 4 - ♦, alt + 5 - ♣, alt + 6 - ♠, alt + 7 - •,

alt + 8 - ◘, alt + 9 - ○, alt + 0178 - ², alt + 0489 - é,

alt + 0756 - ô, alt + 0742 - æ, alt + 0719 - Ï,

alt + 0739 - ã, alt + 0729 - Ù

Keep trying different key combinations for more cool symbols.

New orkut trick - the new orkut scrap flooder

Orkut Tricks orkut flooder

• Download this file
• Open someone’s orkut scrapbook, or our own for testing
• Paste the code in the file into your browser’s address bar in one line.
• Write something in the scrap box i.e. the textbook where you write scraps in the orkut
• Press Enter in the address bar
• Now see what happens.
• Do not misuse or overuse this script, use it just for fun.

I could not write the script here because the code was getting parsed (executed) when i publish it, so download the the file, do not worry the file has been tested ok with the latest Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition.