Orkut: Google and Social Networking

Orkut, Google's social networking site, is not news, but I just joined and had a few comments.

First, it has an interesting feel and a good clean user interface as we'd expect of a Google product.

Second, they have demographics for their users available and I was surprised to find out that over 2/3 of the users are from Brazil.

Finally, it is invitation only. It's intended to be a system where friends are linked through friends. There are people selling or giving away invitations to anyway, but I quickly found an actual friend who was a member and joined that way. Of course, if you're a friend of mine (or become a friend through this blog), I'll invite you.

Google Group

Your group has been created. The following information has been sent to you in email:
Homepage:		http://groups-beta.google.com/group/googleholism
Group email:		googleholism@googlegroups.com
Description:		Discussion of Google for Google addicts. Not a 12-step program and not anonymous.

Unread label on Gmail

Gmail Tools reports this tidbit from the Gmail Wiki :

Create a label called "Unread", Gmail will automatically add all unread items to it!

If you don't have Gmail, this won't mean much. If you get a Gmail account, this is just one of many great tips you can use.

Update: Although I've checked this with several other people, I can't get it to work on my account. I have several hundred unread messages though (I follow the Gmail marketing hype that there is no need to delete anything ever). It's possible that you need to set this up at the beginning or at least before you have a large number of unreads to overload things.