Orkut is a very famous Social networking site in Brazil and India. I have heard that, in Brazil, if 20 are in a cyber, 18 of them will be accessing Orkut. Hope this is not the case in India, but still Orkut is a popular site to get in touch with friends and family.
But its difficult to be in front of computer all the time to get in touch with friends and family. So Orkut had introduced a separate version of Orkut for mobile internet users. But as we all know, most of the service providers charge high rates for providing mobile internet.
So now Google’s popular social networking site Orkut has introduced yet another cool feature, by which we can use Orkut from our cell phones without internet connection. Yes, I am talking about the SMS feature. Orkut had introduced SMS feature in Brazil long back. If you are from Brazil, then click here to learn more.
So I was expecting Orkut to release the same kind of feature in India too. And the day came soon, and now we can use orkut’s new SMS feature, to scrap our friends, look up their contact information and receive scrap notifications.
I always had a thought that Google may merge its Orkut and dodgeball.com to give us a great social networking site. Now Orkut SMS service would look more similar to dodgeball.com( by Google ) service.
To get started click here. There you will see option to specify your mobile number to receive notifications. You will have to verify your mobile number first to start using this service.
When I first saw the list of service providers, I felt like, I am missing something. And suddenly I could realize that, Big players like Airtel and Vodafone where missing from the list! Hope they include them as soon as possible, orelse they will be loosing many customers, before acquiring them.
I use Spice SIM in my Nokia 6630(“3G enabled iPhone will be released on Aug 18th and Aug 22nd by Vodafone and Airtel respectively, in India”. And I will be purchaing iPhone with Airtel soon..).
Spice charges 2Rs for sending mobile verification SMS.
Though I used my Spice number to signup for this service and sent the verification code to the correct number, still this service is not yet activated to my number. I received no confirmation message from Orkut either.
And surprisingly I spotted another aspect….which I have not shown in the above video. When I click on the link “Having Problem?” It shows the following message
Currently orkut SMS works only in Brazil. If you are still not able to register your mobile number visit the SMS help page.
Here is the screen shot…
What should we call this…an error or is this SMS feature still in pre-launch mode in India or is it a pre-registration or whatelse ?
Is this Me alone or everyone else having the same problem with registering their mobile number?