Google's Orkut Tweaks Point To Google Me
Google has made some changes to the features at Orkut, the company's lackluster social network, that could suggest the direction the search giant is going with its overall social efforts, which reportedly include a social network code-named Google …
Context & Ripple Effects
Orkut has been a long-running puzzle inside Google: Business Week profiled it in October 2007 as a network carrying global ambitions, while the same year saw pointed criticism that the product itself badly needed improvement. Three years on it remains what GigaOM calls lackluster, yet it still commands attention because it is one of the few places where Google ships social features at scale.
That is why this week's feature changes matter beyond their size: the report frames them as a possible preview of the direction of Google's wider social push, including a social network code-named "Google Me" — a project that is only rumored and unconfirmed as of late August 2010. It lands alongside other confirmed social moves from the same month, including the Like.com acquisition completed August 20 and new tooling for Realtime Search.
First-order effects
- Orkut users get the tweaked features immediately, and analysts now read each change to the aging network as a signal about Google's overall social strategy rather than as isolated product work.
- The rumored "Google Me" project stays unconfirmed, leaving Google's social roadmap legible mainly through side channels like Orkut updates, acquisitions like Like.com, and search features such as Realtime Search.
Second-order effects
- If a dedicated Google social network does materialize, Orkut's most plausible near-term role is as a testing ground whose features migrate into the new product, changing how competitors like Facebook interpret every Orkut release.
- Google's parallel moves — pulling Yelp reviews out of Google Places after friction over consent, buying shopping-adjacent assets like Like.com — suggest rivals should expect social data and commerce content to be contested ground in any Google social launch.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward Google treating social as a layer across search, places, and shopping rather than betting solely on a standalone network — though whether "Google Me" exists at all remains unconfirmed, and Orkut's own fate in that structure is unresolved.
- For the industry, an incumbent search company iterating quietly through legacy properties before committing to a flagship product would reinforce the norm that social strategy is read from shipping behavior, not announcements.
The trend: Google is probing social through incremental changes across its existing properties while a rumored dedicated network shapes expectations, part of the larger shift of search companies folding social signals directly into their core products.