Orkut

IFPI: Brazil's Largest Music-Sharing Community Shut Down

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 1, 2009 - 1:18pm.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a record label trade group, announced that it has aided authorities in shutting down what it claims was Brazil's largest Web community offering links to illegal music files. With just under a million registered users, "DiscorafiaS" was a group within Orkut, Google's (NASD: GOOG) social network -- which is the most popular social network in Brazil. IFPI said local industry trade association ABPD and anti-piracy firm APCM Brazil led the actions, which also shut down five other similar groups on Orkut.

Report: Social Networks Now More Popular Than Email

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 9, 2009 - 11:00am.
New York - Member communities, which include social networks and blogs, now are visited by more than two-thirds of the global online population, making it the fourth most popular online category, ahead of even personal email, according to a new report from Nielsen. The category is growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors, which also include search, portals and PC software.

MySpace Launches Localized Site in Brazil

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 17, 2007 - 12:41pm.

San Francisco - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace has launched a localized site in Brazil, where Google's Orkut is the most popular online social network, CNET News.com reported. The site is MySpace's twentieth regional version, and already includes profiles from some 55,000 bands. Meanwhile, over 55% of Orkut's nearly 70 million members cite Brazil as their location.

Google to Introduce Developers' Platform for Social Networks

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 31, 2007 - 7:55am.
Google (Halloween)

Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is set to launch OpenSocial, a platform for developing social applications that can run across all social networks and websites.