Like Liz and Clay at Many-to-Many, I have gotten a slew of friend invites for Orkut.

First Take

The interface seems primitive, and the questionaire is too involved for business purposes. Once again, the confusion that arises from lumping together the many different sorts of networks -- dating, business, culture, etc. -- and making all of us walk through the same antechamber.

The system doesn't have some of the niceties that are found in other solutions for expression and content development, but it is possible to create 'groups' and post bloggish entries associated with your profile. Looks like it has a long way to go.

The discovery by many that mass emailing is possible has led to -- guess what -- mass emailings about mass emailings. Until that settles down, the email system there will be useless, and we will all be deleting broadcasts with zero content.

Like Liz, I received an invitation to 'friend' with George Something, and then could not find George. Liz suspects the admins are deleting people and posts that suggest things are awry.

Starting to smell like an experiment going sideways.