Join Orkut ????

Couple of days ago, one of my friend tried to sign up for orkut.com and found this

orkut is unique, because it's an organically growing network of trusted friends. That way we won't grow too large, too quickly and everyone will have at least one person to vouch for them.

If you know someone who is a member of orkut, that person can invite you to join as well. If you don't know an orkut member, wait a bit and most likely you soon will.

We look forward to having you as part of the orkut community.

Today, before going off for my Diwali break, I just logged in to orkut and noticed that now you anyone can Join orkut.

Another new (trivial) feature is

Now you can choose to get friend requests from everyone or only from people that speak your language. Please adjust your settings.

I think that day is not far when something like below will become a reality:

Random Reading :

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• Orkut
• India's growth in Orkut

Yahoo Time Capsule (Flash Required)

Yahoo set out on Monday to capture life on Earth in digital formats for a "time capsule" to be buried in Silicon Valley as well as beamed from Mexico into the cosmos.

Yahoo invited people worldwide to contribute pictures, videos, songs, ideas, drawings or anything else they could digitize for a "first-ever electronic anthropology project" to document human life this year.

"We are bringing together this ancient site with present-day culture in the time capsule and at the same time beaming it into space for the future," Srinivasan said. "It is there for whoever is out there," he added.

Submissions will be accepted for 30 days, with the window closing on Nov. 8.

Yahoo said time capsule contents would be archived on data storing hardware and buried at a secret spot on its campus in Sunnyvale, California.

Google buys YouTube

Google Inc. snapped up YouTube Inc. for US$1.65 billion yesterday in a deal that catapults the Internet search leader to a leading role in the online video revolution.

The all-stock acquisition unites one of the Internet's marquee companies with one of its rapidly rising stars. YouTube will continue to keep its brand, as well as all 67 employees, including co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities with Google's expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing videos, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a vast new audience.

"We are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers," said Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive.

Google's YouTube coup may intensify pressure on Yahoo to make its own splash by buying Facebook.com, the Internet's second most popular social-networking site. Yahoo has reportedly offered as much as US$1 billion for Palo Alto-based Facebook during months of sporadic talks.