Orkut no more requires an invitation – Marketing challenge

Here is another post to my orkut series before I go to sleep. I am sure I am going to have bad dreams as I just saw few more Matt Cutts videos where he was speaking about supplement results and usual 301 redirection stuffs. To avoid bad dreams I am going to read first few chapters of Esther (Bible) before I go to sleep. Just joking. I just read that Orkut doesn’t require invitation.

Google’s social network, Orkut, doesn’t need an invitation anymore. You can sign in using your Google Account.

The invitation was one of the reasons behind Orkut’s failure to compete with MySpace. Now that Facebook is also public, the competition will start to become interesting.

from googlesystem.blogspot.com

The reason of failure caught my attention, the invitation. Almost 60% of the users are from Brazil and I think India comes third (I am missing the Orkut link which showed me the exact stats). I think it is a typical case of “cultural marketing”. In India and Brazil people are very much connected with each other and want to do so, Orkut just made it simpler. Invitation was never a problem in India. Is invitation the reason for orkut’s failure then is Gmail a success in US? I think its the culture and the broken complexity that mattered. In India many who found Internet complex found Orkut comparatively very simple.

Recently when we had our choir practice at our house many asked me to send them an Orkut request and I did that that very moment. Does some culture find the invitation stuff a little difficult? I think I have something new to study tomorrow (Sad that I only know about Indian culture, I never been to any other country but have met many evangelists and missionaries from various countries. I think web forums will make it happen).

http://www.orkut.com/JoinCreate.aspx, this is where you can create a new account for orkut.

Do you think invitation can be a reason behind Orkut’s failure in some part of the world? Did you find invitation a barrier?

5 Replies to “Orkut no more requires an invitation – Marketing challenge”

  1. it may be failure in some part of world . but what i think in india like country where free produts are not welcome.
    google made policy of invitation to make this some power ful brand. bcz in indian mentality is

    ” abe tere pas gmail ka account nahi hai ….

    nahi hai yar sala koi invite hi nhai karta hai…

    abe gmail kaya fandoo cheez hai , its so fast and simple , koi add nahi koi banner nhai…aajkal
    to proffesional log sirf apna account gmail ka hi rakhte hain…

    are tu kuch jugar kar na mere account khulwane ka…

    karat hnooo..

    above conversation is true.
    so this type conversations genrate customer not only customer but loyal customer for google…

  2. I think the join on invite is a good idea…it adds a bit of charm to the whole thing.. apart from that I the reply button is a pretty decent thing. The reply button actually gives u a choice – go to scrap book and write or simply write! Both the means r available , so ultimately d choice is of d person who is writing… there is no need to force anyone to do nething..infcat it keeps totally wth d culture of orkut…

  3. “koi add nahi koi banner nhai”

    Is this still true? I have seen ads within emails received in my gmail account. Even they are displaying ads inside orkut communities! Has anyone noticed it?

  4. >> I think you’re wrong. I wouldn’t exactly call a system with 50 million users a failure.
    Failure is relative, a comparison with the expectation. Orkut did very well (above expectation) in India but could not do as good (below expectation) in some parts of World. They have removed the virtual scarcity level as now we are moving towards an economy of abundance.

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