« Stowe Boyd on Wikis |
Main
| Taking it to the Streets »
February 26, 2004
Orkut.com turns out to be a master's thesis project?
Posted by Seb Paquet
Todd Boyle on the reputation mailing list tips us to this revelation (not sure what the original source is
[hoax warning: be sure to read this post til the end]):
Orkut.com, a popular social networking Website which has attracted the attention of the some of the Internet's biggest names, was revealed today by its creators to be an elaborate "reality Internet" project to form the basis of a master's thesis.
"We figured we couldn't keep it secret much longer anyway," said Orkut Buyukkokten, after whom the distinctive blue-colored meet-and-match site was named. "I didn't think we could do it this long in the first place, actually."
This of course explains Orkut's much-maligned terms of service:
"We had to have something pretty clearly worded or [the thesis author] wouldn't be able to publish the findings after everyone found out," said Buyukkokten. "I'm actually amazed that more people didn't completely refuse to use the service."
Now that the secret is out, what will happen to the service? "Oh, we're expecting a lot of attrition, but the bills are paid until the end of March, so what the hell? Anyway, I have my data." The thesis author added that all the data will be anonymized, "I promise."
[Update: turns out the "original source" is Mark Schalofski's fake news site, HACT. Thanks, "Anita":http://www.anitarowland.com/ !]
Comments (10)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: social software
- RELATED ENTRIES
- › Spolsky on Blog Comments: Scale matters
- › "The internet's output is data, but its product is freedom"
- › Andrew Keen: Rescuing 'Luddite' from the Luddites
- › knowledge access as a public good
- › viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
- › Gorman, redux: The Siren Song of the Internet
- › Mis-understanding Fred Wilson's 'Age and Entrepreneurship' argument
- › The Future Belongs to Those Who Take The Present For Granted: A return to Fred Wilson's "age question"
1. Anita Rowland on February 26, 2004 10:31 AM writes...
hact.org looks like the original source for this. Smells like "humor" to me!
Permalink to Comment2. Yoz on February 26, 2004 10:48 AM writes...
Indeed, if you check at the bottom of the page you'll see the disclaimer.
(I was trying to copy and post it here but apparently it's "questionable content" - you guys need to check your MT-Blacklist config, I think)
Permalink to Comment3. felix on February 26, 2004 12:47 PM writes...
as i found out at etech lobby it seems to be a complete cover-up by google. check story
Permalink to Comment4. Alex Halavais on February 26, 2004 1:09 PM writes...
Heh. The irony here, of course, is that no respectable university in the US would allow you to treat human subjects this way or collect this data without full disclosure.
Permalink to Comment5. Scott Allen on February 26, 2004 2:48 PM writes...
The problem is that without context, pieces like this lose the humor. Someone reads this, doesn't pay attention to the link to HACT and go find out what it is, and next thing you know, orkut has a PR problem.
One time, I posted a link to a story at The Onion on my About.com Entrepreneurs site that I thought was incredibly funny about a woman who had just quit her job at the suggestion of her friends to start a gourment dog biscuit business. Well, the letters from work-at-home moms offering their emotional support to this completely fictitional woman outnumbered the "that's funny" responses by 20:1. Being unfamiliar with The Onion, even linking there, they didn't pay attention to the surroundings, and had no idea that it was satire -- they thought it was a human interest story.
Add to that the whole RSS summary issue, and, well -- I imagine that many who saw this headline in their RSS reader didn't come read the article, so no telling how many people are going to quit using orkut simply because they didn't investigate the story any further than a headline and a one-paragraph summary.
So, what's our responsibility in this sort of thing as blogger/journalists? I dunno... I'm just raising the question.
Permalink to Comment6. Mark Schalofski on February 26, 2004 6:17 PM writes...
Scott, you raise a good point. For the last 24 hours I have been watching my funny little fake news article bounce around the Internet bigtime. I am also, as you might imagine, a member of Orkut, and the link has popped up many times, mostly taken seriously.
Permalink to CommentI've felt both glee and guilt during this time -- I actually like Orkut, although I think they need to stop deleting content out of hand and start communicating with their users so the usership won't think the worst, but they're already thinking it.
But it wasn't an attack -- it was meant as a poke in a ticklish place. I think the reason it was taken out of context and believed so readily is that it was a halfway-plausible explanation thrown into a vacuum. Why shouldn't it be a master's thesis, when they play their cards so close to their chest?
But that begs the question: why do people care so much? Why the sense of betrayal that gets turned into vindication after reading a cockamamie explanation that sort of fits? Where is all that emotion coming from? My answer is (and I'm trying not to take myself too seriously, just like I'm trying not to take Orkut too seriously), is this: Orkut raised the bar on the social network website idea. I think primarily because Google was behind it... Google is a Big Company You Can Trust, and wouldn't it be cool to let loose on a gigantic ol,ine playground with its own Usenet, dating service, email and ego-boosting karma? Wouldn't it be nice to trust a company big enough to do a gigantic project like Orkut+Google for once?
So I think that was the state of affairs when people started making a big deal about the TOS. I think the current state of privacy here in the West is why people are emotional about it.
I'm looking forward to see what Orkut pulls out of its hat next...
7. Seb on February 26, 2004 6:32 PM writes...
Scott: I hadn't thought about the RSS summary issue, so I modified the first line this evening. Thanks for highlighting that!
Permalink to Comment8. Adam Rice on February 26, 2004 7:07 PM writes...
Scott, there really is a gourmet dog-biscuit store here in town.
Permalink to Comment9. Wallin Richardson on May 8, 2004 2:34 PM writes...
Here's an interesting forum where we can discuss orkut. http://www.googlecommunity.com/forum-4.html
Permalink to Comment10. TerenceP. Mullin on June 14, 2004 8:32 PM writes...
So whats up with Orkut?My recomendation to look into it was through the Atheists Network,the word was their group attracted a fair amount of like minded people I could network with.I don't see any final verdict on what they are or aren't doing.Your whole page,comments etc. sound like old women talking over the back fence,cheap gossip.Does anyone have any actual facts that they aren't doing what they set out to do,introduce people.
Permalink to Comment