i have always had the fantasy that brazilians, like pirates, took over orkut against the will of great mighty google, so finally i had the opportunity of asking danah boyd how google experienced this process.

danah, as some may know, was working at google during that time.

to my great disapointment, according to her, orkut was a side project at google, so it was not expected to compete with myspace and other social network sites. the company started paying attention at orkut after it became popular among brazilians and indians.

i was also surprised by her perspective that google still hasn't understood how to use social media. it makes sense, as she explains it. after buying cool start-ups, it puts the aside.