Why Brazil Loves Orkut!
Danny Sullivan made a post today at Search Engine Watch quoting a USA Today piece on the alarming amount of Al-Qaeda “fan” groups in Google’s Orkut. Anytime one talks about Orkut the Brazilian phenomina is discussed which centers around why is Orkut so popular in Brazil?
Danny posted on Search Engine Watch after Google Analyst Day : “My favorite part is probably the explanation of why Orkut only seems to be taking off in Brazil. “Brazilians are just very community-oriented.” What, all those crazy US kids jumping into MySpace like my niece don’t have a sense of community?”
I’ve been thinking about this myself lately and took the liberty of speaking with some Orkut loving Brazilians, my wife (who is from Brazil), representatives from Google Japan (there are over 100,000 wired Brazilians living in Japan) and others about Orkut and came up with this list:
1. Brazilians are incredibly community oriented and refer to groups as Tribalistas, or tribos. People tend to associate with these groups in everyday conversation and continuously refer to how they are Heavy Metal fans, Evangelical Christians, Sambistas, Macumberos, PT supporters, or whether they prefer Skol to Kaiser.
Social Networking caught on really quick in Brazil because of this relevance to everyday life. There is definitely more of a coolness factor to social networking in Brazil.
2. Orkut is very easy to pronounce in Portuguese. Try telling someone from Brazil to go to Friendster.com or MySpace. The names of those sites are lost in translation. When someone pronounces “Orkut” in Portuguese (especially Brazilian Portuguese with the heavy incluence on the “ch” T sound), they can easily spell it, visualize the word and remember it next time they get infront of the computer.
3. Orkut sounds like Yakult or “iogurte” (yogurt). Yakult is the Brazilian version of the popular Japanese Yakult yogurt drink. Everyone drinks it in Brazil when they’re kids. There is a totally unintentional instant association between the words Orkut, Iogurte and Yakut in Brazil.
4. Brazilians with constant Internet access are on the upper echelon of “differencia social.” Although Brazilians are some of the most outgoing people I’ve ever met, they are quite cautious when meeting others and inviting them into their circle of friends.
By using a service like Orkut, users can prequalify the new friends they make by judging their ability to access the Internet, write and read correctly, and see which friends they share.
5. The fact that Orkut is now associated with Brazil has added flame to the popularity fire. This is a country which is quite proud of their culture, economic position in South America, and World Domination of Soccer (futbol). Now, they are proud to have Orkut as their own.
6. Mobility – Many young professionals or just younger Brazilians in general have moved from Sao Paulo to Curitiba, Floripa and other bustling southern Brazilian towns (not to mention Miami, New York, Washington DC, Italy, Spain, and Japan). Social Networking is a way to keep in touch with groups of friends much easier than mass emails.
7. A large number of Brazilians access the Internet from Internet Cafes and online gaming cafes. Orkut has grown in popularity due to this mobility factor. One can access their accounts from anywhere.
8. I’ve noticed with some Brazilians, especially women, there is a lot of competitiveness when it comes to attracting attention (this could be universal of course). The awards, fan citations and friendship offerings in Orkut just fuel this tendency. It’s also cool to have Orkut ‘friends’ from Europe, the US, and Japan on your profile.
9. Again, Yakut and pronunciation. When I told the people at Google about the pronunciation factor they seemed amazed. Google is beginning to enjoy the same compatibilty with the Portuguese language. Not to say Yahoo does not, and Hotmail certainly does, but the Google hip factor has made “goo-gly” a new part of the Brazilian Portuguese language and its association with Orkut is beginning to lead to Google and GMail converts.
10. Orkut’s color scheme is the same as the Brazilian World Cup team’s away jerseys (or is it home? the BLUE ones). This is going out on a limb however, since the color is also similar to Argentina’s flag and uniform colors.
11. Lack of advertising. Most Brazilians I know are sick of advertising. Outdoor billboards, political radio infomercials, ads painted on walls, cars driving around with loud speakers on top, people selling water or Silvio Santos Tele Sena lotto tickets clapping their hands at the gate outside of the house – referred to as Poluicao Visual. Orkut has no advertising, yet :)
Well, after reading all this comments about Orkut popularity in Brazil I have a moment of self discovering ” We Brazilians are doing great” .. it’s a proof that Orkut is really successfully working in Brazil and this success is totally buthering people around the world. Some others kinds of networking services over the internet have not developed as Orkut has and I wonder why?, maybe because those networking services are not filled out with people that make them better..It really makes me feel happier to know throughout Orkut we can show all over the world how Brazilians are able to make something work out when they really want to.
We can enjoy as much as we want!
Well I must say why I think brazilians choose Orkut. 1st there are different kinds of brazilians: brazilians who don’t know other social networking sites and brazilians who Do know. I know Gazzag and MySpace. About Gazzag…it’s like Orkut but there is fewer people…so why would we try it? MySpace? WTF is that site? I made a profile there sometime ago because I wanted a Gobal network and not a ‘brazilian’ one. MySpace has lack of support..a bunch of online sellers and spams…what is that? WTF is that ? rsrssr…that site is a joke. So we go to Orkut and there is…our best friends, a lot of funny people to know, communities where we can laugh, play crazy silly games and meet people. We were invited by friends, it’s not easy for some idiot spammer or seller to enter. Most communitie’s owner controls the invading spams. It’s easy to use. I think brazilians love photos and landscapes and it’s funny to see other people’s album. And to make our own.
I think the question is how Orkut have beggining in Brazil because at this point brazilians join Orkut because their friends are already there. And I think the answer is this: why would a brazilian want to join a site like MySpace when Orkut is far better? And the answer is this too: Other countries aren’t having that much fun with Orkut. Simple like that.
I also must say: There are few big countries around the world. Brazil is one of them, India is another one. One interesting question would be why USA and China aren’t using Orkut?
In China maybe it’s forbidden…
But in USA I can’t understand. And I can’t believe they like MyJunk.
It’s just a bandwith issue, guys. Of course, the wave or rumours did its part, but after the intial reasons. The early adopters in Brazil from the technology sector chose orkut because it loaded faster than others, you know, like gmail versus hotmail. That’s it.
Affordable bandwith in India and Brazil were, and still are, slower than in Europe or the U.S.
And orkut was not multimedia filled at all, unlike myspace. It was simple, fast and, yeah, homogeneous: easy to figure out.
Time. Time will always be the main reason.
“differencia social” ?
differencia Ｘ
diferença 〇
I am lucky to have some friends from Brazil in Orkut. I am a true lover of Brasil for their culture, friendly people, football, beaches and babes.
Brazil Rocks!!!
I think Brasilians are very friendly. I have some good friends in orkut from there.
The reason is simple: Orkut was the first one to appear around here….
I’m brazilian………and sincerelly, the collor and pronounce things was the most stuped of this post!
xD and Fabio,
Do you agree with my opinion about Fantastico TV Show influence?
Yeh Ádrian……infortunetly Tv Globo have a lot of influence here!Globo it’s the moste famous tv Here!
Football..Brasil..Football…Brasil!!!
Football…my passion
Hi, my name is Vitor and I’m in Orkut since 2004. The first time someone told me about orkut was in a journalism discussion group, and I asked for an invitation to join the service as a Beta tester. I remember that, in the beginning, there were so many north americans as brazilians. There were a lot of argues because of the languages. The americans started to complain against the users that have written in portuguese. So, the americans created some communities or foruns against brazilians. That made some brazilians reply writing emails to their friends and inviting everyone they knew to join Orkut to protest against xenophobia. Then a campaign started to overcome the number of american users and to assure the right to use portuguese language in foruns. I remember I used to receive emails saying that the brazilians users were close to overcome the number of american users. Suddenly, everybody was there. Your neighbor, your ex-classmate, your co-worker, the girl you like. Then started another level. When they realize that they won that “battle” and they could talk in Portuguese, they started to ask: “And Now? What does that mean? What can I do?” Orkut was a good tool without ANY ad. Then brazilians started to create games, communities of their former school, use that to chat and find another uses to that social network. That’s why it became so popular in Brazil. But, suddenly, spammers start to post scraps and “love messages”. Another guys started to stole photos to use in a fake profile. Since then started a move to “orkuticide”, an expression to define someone who comitted suicide in Orkut. Now orkut have some tools to lock the access to that photos. I know a lot of people who did that. Some of them created another profile with another identity to avoid any danger. Some migrated to another social networks services. And some still have their Orkut profile and joined MySpace, Friendster, V6, Tagged, Facebook, UOL, and others.
Google (and orkut) is very popular in Brazil, because google is simple, clear, and fast. No big ads. No junk mail. I simply trust Google. Now, I trust Orkut.
I’m a brazilian nikkey, and I also associate the word with yogurt, and not with yakult ;-)
i like & i neeed sexy girls
i’m a brazilian girl.
I think Orkut is popular here because brazilian people are very communicative , they like to keep in touch with friends and to express their opinion and tastes. Showing which communities you have in your page is a way of showing your personality. Here, people are funny and seems to be allways in good mood. Orkut give us the opportunity of been funny, because everybody can create communities with funny contents, like: “I’m hungry but i already brushed my teeth”, “I’m
allergic, but i am happy”, “i read imagining the voices”, and, there also some serious communities, that show us what we like, “I like popcorn”, “A nice circus is a circus without animals”, ” i love my family” and others. My Space, seems boring, and Orkut does’t.
Back in 2004, when I joined orkut, I used to be a fotolog addict. But me and my friends were harassed by some crazy nutjob who anonymously threatened us. The invitation-only nature of orkut was a good reason to join it, since it felt safer.
The only other community site I can remember from back then was Friendster, but I only had a couple of americn friends there.
very good article, and the comments even more (-: it took me a while to read, but I loved reading this page.
i am a boy
what is yuor name
kmbkmbkkfkjh
All right, but what does http://www.gaykut.com has to do with http://www.orkut.com?
sou morena e inteligente venha conhecer a minha pessoa
sou morena e iteligente afim de conhecer pessoas legais quem sabe é vc
sou van uma pessoa legal e inteligente gosto de conhecer pessoas legais e bonitas
my gramdmother was brazilian from Jau -Sao Paulo.Can anybody help me to find out my relations.The surname is Vedovi.Thanks
yeah,,man,,i also think that way,
especially,,women,,when they love to show friends their new clothes and stuff
Hi,
I am just curious. Where did the thing Orkut/Yakult came from? I am Brazilian and I never heard of it. Neither did my friends.
well, the Goo-gly thing you sayd depends on where in Brazil you are…in the southern part it might sounds like:
Goo-glay…but most people pronounce it correctly nowadays. the Orkut/yakult/yogurt thing is true…not so big deal, “the sillier the better” as some one above sayd.
the thing about why Im in orkut or in Msn messenger(windows live messenger) is the same…my friends are on it…so lets get to it…I do have a tagged profile, a myspace and a yahoo profile…but orkut and msn messenger live…whatever microsoft calls it…is just becouse is fast and no adds… but brazilian are the most freaky people on the planet….at least I am!
I’m Brazilian, and I’ve been on Orkut for a very long time. Much before the “Brazilian invasion”.
I remember that, in the beginning, the idea of Orkut was to invite only your closest friends, those who could add to the community. That was the pattern that was followed by people everywhere. The first Brazilians there were CS students from major universities, and then they started to spread invitations (but still, only a few invitations per user. I invited maybe three or four people).
At some point, on the “Brasil” community, a flaming topic was started. Someone was saying that “we should be ashamed”, that “there [were] more people from Texas than from Brasil” (they had a Statistics page that showed the percentage of users from each country and from each US state), that “Brasil rules” and “Brasil should rule Orkut”. It was a “call to arms”, for people to spam Orkut invites to everyone they could in Brazil, to make the Brazilians a bigger group than any other country. Some people accepted that, and that’s where it all went downhill.
Despite some people’s protests, some started spamming invitations, and asking the invited people to do the same. At some point, Brazilians were over 50% of Orkut. After that, people who I’m ashamed to call my “fellow countrymen” began to post in Portuguese in every single community. International moderators would tell them that they should stick to English in international communities; then, a bunch of offenses about how “we are the majority” and “you must shut up and accept that your country sucks and Brazil rules” would be thrown. People from every other country just gave up on the service, so only the Brazilians remained.
The “Indian invasion” started after Google made it harder to go to communities in other languages than your own, so they didn’t feel the power of the stupidity of the Brazilian masses.
nobody here knows what friendster is. Even myspace. MySpace is for bands, actually for unknown bands, and that’s all 4 us!
Facebook just started some kind of “i’ve already heard about….”. But everyone aks me what it is. and i usually say: “the same as Orkut, but with a worse and boring interface”. People who has Facebook profile doesn’t use it. Just because everybody has an Orkut profile. I just use my Facebook to talk with foreign friends.
And yes. We’re pround of orkut domination!
DEATH TO ALL AUSTRALIANS!
I tried to use others sites as facebook, myspace, hi5… But orkut is easiest!! Is more beautiful and functional!
And all my friends are in orkut!! I love apreciating the my friends´s photos, I love seeing the stranger´s person orkut!!!
It´s cool, but I don´t know why!
What puzzles me about Orkut is that it’s a fantastic case of “what not to do” in terms of usability. It’s super anti-intuitive to use (high learning curve, not exactly made easy/doesn’t follow many conventions). And still it’s this popular – at least in Brazil.
“All understood. But the question is… Why Orkut?”
It’s simples than it seems: it came here first.
Depending on how you color your POV, Brazilians are either very conformist or loyal. Either way, once they adopt a service (note that doesn’t apply to the Internet only), a place to go, a brand or whatever, it’s hard to get them to use a competitor or alternative.
Orkut spread into the Brazilian internet community by word of mouth way before MySpace or Facebook ever considered advertising.
It’s as simple as that, really. Now it will take a lot of marketing effort and time to reverse this, even if any sane person recongnizes how it’s a lot more counter-intuitive then some of its competitors.
The “all my friends are there, that’s why” argument may sound like a reason, but it’s actually a consequence of what really happened.
Note also that Orkut is only the most obvious account of this phenomenon. It actually applies to other markets and services. For example, I have the distinct impression that most ’semi-professional’ bloggers prefer LiveJournal or WordPress, but in here Blogger is still more popular (again, it came here first, both in word of mouth and language localization).
f brazil yea brazil is nice but the girls are hoes why i say that is because they are well some are hoes anyways i would live their but their is just one reason why i would not live their there is a girl that i don’t like i hate her name is juliana don’t know her last name but she went out with my bf hiss name is C _______ Reyes from north high school and from USA im not going to give his whole name out but yea if anyone fines that bitch w/b at maurissa_hp15@yahoo.com well bye and thanks xoxo Kakaka
lol I read everything, and the post i love. When it comes a post with big discussion, it reveals it was a good post, at least, lots of people read it. Interesting post, and after some years, some of things are on past. ‘Yakult’ term has gone… Maybe because the past-members has grown up 3 or 4 years, and don’t want to look like a silly, saying ‘iorgute’. I used to tell that, but now… lol
however, its good to know a non brazilian has ’studied’ a phenomenon that has occured in Brazil, which means, people cannot say anymore we’re living in a big and wild jungle. lol I heard lots of jokes from americans and europeans how I had visited their country lol
As a matter of fact, orkut is a real social networking and an easy going website. MySpace, Friendster, facebook are pretty different and they have somehow complicated layout. anyway…
Rogerrrrrrrr
Orkut works best for us.. I love orkut. It gives me freedom to see, write testimonials, write scraps, messages, share, and spread happiness.. it has narrowed the barriers. I am not sure why we dont like facebook , maybe we stick to one thing and stay with it.
Oh I have a facebook acccount but barely use it. Becuase Orkut rocks! Yes we love orkut
i came to orkut to have my frinds besides me…..& i came across few friends from brazil…..& note they send me scraps & greetings in their kind of english….but the thing i want to say is they remenber me more then my nearby friends do……..i agree that they are the best kind of friends i have got…..
I really like brazil… and there people
and obviously there artistic football
that is one of reasons that I am not proud to be “brazilian”. indeed I don’t think that I have any nationality.
I am “brazilian” only on my identification card also I don’t like to be compared with these such delayed and stupid people that mean 99% of brazilians.
I spent 2 years in Brazil and know the country and the people very well. Brazilians are very hospitable and outwardly friendly, but underneath it all, a lot of them are very dishonest, conniving, scheming, machiavellian, scandalous, shady, gingoistic, and childishly proud and competitive. You can have a good time hanging out with Brazilians, but always be super cautious and don’t trust them until you really, really get to know them.
The reason Orkut had such a big acceptance in Brazil, in my opinion, is because somehow Google managed to create, of course unintentionally, a place where we felt like home in Internet, even though, like I said, it was not created with this purpose (I believe Google had in mind only the USA when creating Orkut). So, for me, this is it. I feel at home in Orkut, like if it was made here in Brazil. As for Facebook, Friendster, etc, I find them cool, but I feel like I am joining a truly foreign community. And, there’s no place like home, the old saying goes lol
Orkut is Google’s social networkign site!, damn i’ve been using google gmail for many years yet I didnt get a single email from google regarding Orkut. Funny thing is I found out after a friend from India asked to get on Orkut loooooooooooool!
Here, Orkut is like an identity card – everyone have one – when you get in the computer world, the first thing is creating an e-mail, don’t? Ok, in Brazil, an e-mail isn’t enough, they want to see a picture of the person, comment their photos, and more, not only send a mail and wait for the answer. More that a like, it’s a custom.
Hey,
good article.
I have to say that “futbol” and “differencia social” are not Portuguese. ;)
The pronunciation of “Google” should have been more like “goo-goal” (the “L” not pronounced)…
Not sure pronunciation really is one of the factors that make it popular, neither what makes it easy to spell. Hotmail, Yahoo and others are just as easy to spell once you see the words…
In 2009 the Twitter social network was the most visited in Brazil.