New Feature: Orkut SMS

Orkut has launched a great new feature which will enable you to receive new scrap notifications via sms.

Let us help find and configure this feature for you…

Go To mobile setting page in your orkut profile settings in order to configure this feature for your orkut profile. This new feature is available in India and Brazil only. (Also Not All Network Operators For Both Countries)

Please Note - You will have to pay for this feature (sms charges).

What is orkut SMS?
orkut SMS allows you to stay in touch with your orkut friends using text messages from your mobile phone.

How does orkut SMS work?

1.	Register your phone on the orkut website.
2.	Send SMS commands from your phone to the appropriate orkut SMS number.

SMS numbers

Brazil:	67588 (Amazônia Celular, Brasil Telecom, Claro, Oi, Telemig Celular, TIM, and Vivo only)
India:	Please check the mobile tab on your orkut settings page.
Other countries:	Not Available

Pricing

Messages sent	2 INR (all carriers except MTNL, which is 1 INR)
Notifications received	Free up to your monthly limit

Please note: orkut SMS is a premium service and you will be charged by your mobile provider. These prices are subject to change by the provider at any time.


SMS commands

on or off	Turn on/off SMS notifications of new scraps	on
reset	Reset your quota limit	reset
unregister	Unregister SMS service	unregister
scrap	Send a scrap to one of your orkut friends	scrap bob smith Have a nice day!!
contact	View the contact information (phone number, email, IM, and address) of an orkut friend	contact bob smith

This Article Was Published Partially At Orkut Plus.

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orkut trends: Who sends scraps?

When orkut launched, we had no idea that scrapbooks would be the primary way members would interact. Billions of scraps later, we've learned that scraps are a huge hit, and have added ways to make them even more fun by enabling you to add videos, photos and HTML.

We've been wondering (and perhaps you have too): Which orkut users are scrappiest? In our recent sample, members from the island nation of Grenada had the highest scrap counts at an average of 1877 scraps. Of the biggest orkut nations, Pakistanis came in first, followed by Americans, Indians, and Brazilians. (All of these statistics are based on current scraps that have not been deleted by the recipients.)

Women receive just under half (48%) of all scraps. Women from the Cayman Islands receive the most, followed by those from the British Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, San Marino, and the Northern Mariana Islands. (What is it about those islanders?) Albanian women had the fewest scraps (81) -- still a pretty substantial number when you think about it.

On the male side, islanders still rule: men from Grenada averaged a whopping 2569 scraps each. Here's the full chart:

Country (gender)	Scraps received	Scraps received (women)	Scraps received (men)
Grenada	1877	557	2569
Cayman Islands	861	1093	715
Pakistan	758	717	779
United States	423	249	578
India	345	443	301
Brazil	267	272	263

Who's sending these scraps? The scrappiest users hail from Pakistan, followed immediately by Madagascar and the Central African Republic. Among women, the most scraps come from Jamaica, then Madagascar, followed by the nation of St. Pierre and Miquelon. Among men, Pakistanis sent the most, then Qatar.

And what are people saying in scraps? Some messages occurred again and again. Out of a sample of 1,000,000 short scraps, the following were among the most common:

scrap	# of occurrences
hi	1131
oi [hi]	689
ok	298
parabens [congratulations]	273
.	187
hello	184
=]	146
vlw [thx]	135
^^	133
blz [ok]	132
=)	124
:)	117
[:p]	115
=D	115

Not only was the word "hi" common, it also appeared frequently followed by extra "i"s. For example, "hiiiiiiiii", "hiiiiiiiiiiiii", and "hiiiiiiiiiii" each occurred more than 90 times in our 1,000,000 scrap sample.

Until next time, our 46th most popular scrap: "bye"!

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News: UK 'keener on online networking'

The UK benefits from cheap broadband deals

More adults in the UK use social networking sites such as Facebook than in other European countries, a report by communications watchdog Ofcom says.

Four out of 10 UK adults with internet access use social networking sites compared to 17% in France, 12% in Germany and 22% in Italy.

The UK is eclipsed only by Canada where 53% of internet users go on social networking sites.

In Japan and the US the percentage is 32% and 34% respectively.

International comparisons

The Ofcom report into the £873bn telecoms, radio and television sectors compared the UK with 11 other countries, including Canada and the US.

It also looked at emerging giants Brazil, Russia, India and China, where mobile phone growth is particularly strong.

The report found that the US and UK are the only places where men do not use the internet more than women.

In the UK, the split is equal, while in the US 52% of internet users are women.

Cheap deals

The watchdog also said that the UK enjoys some of the cheapest deals for telephone, pay-TV and broadband.

In the UK, about 40% of households already take a bundled service, where they pay a monthly fee for a telephone landline, pay-TV and the internet.

This can be as low as £25 in the UK for a typical family household including two parents and two children.

This compares with £27.22 in France, £39.77 in Germany and £69.54 in the US.

COST OF PHONE, INTERNET & TV UK: £25 France: £27.22 Germany: £39.77 US: £69.54 Price for triple play deals Source: Ofcom

Price may be one of the reasons the UK has the highest take-up of digital television in the 12 countries surveyed.

At the end of 2006, about 76% of UK households were digital.

But it is still Japanese and US consumers who spend the most time watching television, averaging 4.5 hours a day.

This is one hour more than people spend in front of television in the UK.

Revenue boost

Internet advertising revenues are also on the rise, particularly in the UK.

At £33, advertisers in the UK spend more money per person on internet advertising than any other country, twice as much as that spent in France, Germany and Italy combined.

Overall, the money to be made from telecom services is increasing, reflecting the growing importance of the sector.

Telecom services revenue per head increased by 20% - from £288m in 2001 to £345m in 2006 - across the countries surveyed, the report found.

Global take up

Globally, mobiles are driving growth in the communications sector, now accounting for 53% of total telecoms revenues.

By the end of 2006, there were 402 million landlines and 634 million mobile connections in the 12 countries surveyed.

Brazil, Russia, China and India are driving much of this growth.

Since 2001, more than 660 million subscriptions were added in these four countries, accounting for 40% of total new mobile subscriptions globally.

Last year, mobile phone users in China sent 429 billion text messages, or 967 text messages per user, compared with 621 per mobile user in the UK.

New subscriptions in India doubled to 150 million, more than twice the number of UK subscribers.

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News: More orkut trends

In our first column, we reported how orkut users rated their beauty by continent. In a poll in the orkut trends community, 69% of you said that you'd like to see the per-country ratings (while 21% said they already know their country has the most beauties). Interestingly, almost all of the comments about beauty were by men commenting on women. We aim to please, so here are the results.

Women from Mexico are most likely (29%) to describe themselves as "beauty contest winners" and the least likely (2%) to describe themselves as "mirror-cracking material". Men from Tonga tend to extremes, with the most (23%) claiming to be pageant winners and an equal number (23%) claiming to be mirror crackers. Uruguayan women are most likely (58%) to consider themselves average, as are 58% of Paraguayan men.

If we assign a numerical weight to each rating (1 for beauty contest winner, 2 for very attractive, etc.), we can get a single "beauty index" for each country's women or men, with lower scores meaning greater (self-rated) beauty, and female Mexicans and male Equatorial Guineans taking the lead. Here are how orkut's leading countries stack up:

country	female beauty index	male beauty index
Brazil	2.95	3.13
United States	2.82	3.15
United Kingdom	3	3.29
Pakistan	3.05	3.25
India	3.23	3.38

The complete data is available here.

Of course, anyone can claim to be beautiful, especially online, so the above rankings may say more about conceit and humility than about looks. As one user wrote, "Orkut can make a lot of money if they put tax on how beautiful people declare themselves to be."

What if you want to judge people's beauty yourself? Just a week after we announced that you can store up to 100 photos in your orkut album, more than 10,000 of you had already gone to the limit. Iranians averaged the fewest photos per person: only 4.1. At the other extreme were Myanmar (12.8) and the island nations of the Cook Islands (12.6), Jamaica (12.7), the Northern Mariana Islands (13.6), and Madagascar (13.8). Of the most popular orkut countries, Indians averaged 6.5 photos each, Pakistanis 6.7, Americans 7.9, Brits 9.3, and Brazilians 9.4, so most of you can increase your albums tenfold! Of course, as Cesar JB expressed, "The concept of beauty varies from one country [to] another". In any case, statistics can give us information but not wisdom, such as that expressed 2500 years ago by Confucius: "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."

Until next time, stay beautiful, each in your own wonderful way.

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