On lighter note, Facebook vs Orkut

This is one thing which is on my mind for past few weeks. I recently covered Orkut and Facebook and also compared them on the lighter notes. I recently covered few changes done in Orkut. But none the less, I am doing it once again. This time my source of information is Google Trends. It is really quite interesting. Though it is not something which we didn't expected, but yes it is interesting enough to be here.
First of all, a note on Google trends...
They should make those charts more sharable. I have to follow print screen method which is really cumbersome, and if you know any refined and a free of cost method then feel free to tell me in comments.
Coming back on the topic...
Before any thing else, I would once again make clear that why this topic interest me so much. Orkut is highly popular and have the same cult like following which Facebook enjoys in US varsities. And after the recent news gain by facebook makes it an interesting competitor to orkut. Otherwise I dont have any kind of stake in any company...
Lets first look the trends for the search and news items which are the overall criteria of the Google trends, blue one is for Facebook and red one is for Orkut.
This one is for 2007, and will bring more focuses results for this year.


Inference:
Recently after F8 there is a sudden rise in the news references which Facebook got. Since this is not up to date trend, so we can not tell that what effect F8 caused to the graph . One thing which people can say that Orkut being an old network wont be the hot enough to discuss, and thus this graph does not make any sense. My answer to them is, when you are in social web space and you are not being talked about then there is something wrong, by wrong I meant that you are not innovating enough, and if you are not innovating then you are giving other networks a chance to gain more people. They might not take away your existing members but yes they may reduce the future numbers.
This point is much more solidified by the upper graph. People are not searching about Orkut. Why this must be saddening to Orkut, (beyond ego surfing for Mr. Orkut)? One word answer, NEW USERS. Old users are not going to search much for the network on which they are, but the users which are new will be inquisitive enough to search about the new network. One more probable reason for the searches can be, hacks for the network, but here again since Orkuts api is not open, then umber of mods and hacks are not there in market.
US was never a forte for Orkut. But US certainly have maximum internet users, so a trend analysis of US region makes sense.



Here...aha it was obvious...as previously mentioned...
US cetizens are neither interested nor using writing about it. This analysis as like previous is from history...so we can not tell about the latest hype effect, but I dont think that will be any way in favour of Orkut.

Now comes the other one...which is just the way round...and this time its all Orkut. Orkut in India, is making news and is being used. Though news are not for good reasons, but as it is said that any publicity is good publicity, so it is true for Orkut. In India Orkut is all up, and Facebook fares much poorer than Orkut in US.



People are not at all searching about Facebook, which may be taken as that it is not creating enough buzz. And buzz is all that matter , when it comes to such kind of products.

Below are the international top 10 ratings with Facebook and Orkut as reference respectively.



This is really interensting Facebook is attracting more buzz in Canada than in US...Oh this one is surprising...
Now lets see the Orkut international card, BRAZIL...BRAZIL...yup thats the topper...




One can not tell very much from these trends for the simple reason that they are not up to date. But this certainly can be extrapolated, to get the latest figures. One more thing, Google trends need to improve themselves or else they should buy some other service doing trends, becasue presently they are nothing but healthy Buzz index, which can be used to tell how much buzz one is creating. But none the less it provides some pieces of useful information. And for conclusion...Mr. Orkut...I have only one suggestion for you...think out of the box and innovate.