Who is Orkut ?

A guy lost his girlfriend in a train accident….

but the gal’s name nowhere appeared in the dead list. This guy grew up n became IT technical architect in his late 20′s, achievement in itself!!

He hired developers from the whole globe and plan to make a software where he could search for his gf through the web..

Things went as planned…

n he found her, after losing millions of dollars and 3 long years!!

It was time to shut down the search operation, when the CEO of Google had a
word with this guy n took over this application,

This Software made a whopping 1 billion dollars profit in its first year,

which we today know as ORKUT.

The guy’s name is Orkut Büyükkökten Yes it’s named after him only. Today he is paid a hefty sum by Google for the things we do like scrapping. He is expected to b the richest person by 2009..

Orkut Büyükkökten today has 13 assistants to monitor his scrapbook & 8 to monitor his friends-list. He gets around 20,000 friend-requests a day & about 85,000 scraps!!!

Some other Cool Facts about this guy:

* He gets $12 from Google when every person registers to this website.

* He also gets $10 when you add somebody as a friend.

* He gets $8 when your friend’s friend adds you as a friend & gets $6 if
anybody adds you as friend in the resulting chain.

* He gets $5 when you scrap somebody & $4 when somebody scraps you.

* He also gets $200 for each photograph you upload on Orkut.

* He gets $2.5 when you add your friend in the crush-list or in the hot-list.

* He gets $2 when you become somebody’s fan.

* He gets $1.5 when somebody else becomes your fan.

* He even gets $1 every time you logout of Orkut.

* He gets $0.5 every time you just change your profile-photograph.

* He also gets $0.5 every time you read your friend’s scrap-book & $0.5 every time you view your friend’s friend-list.

Facebook Fever High among Indian Students

 

Facebook has become a part of youngsters’ life now. The numbers of Facebook users are rising day by day in India. The increasing Facebook obsession is creating tension among parents since the children show more interest in using Facebook than any other form of entertainment.

The recent TCS GenY survey uncovers this increasing trend among the urban high school students across India. Survey points out that only 0.71 percent of urban students use television for entertainment while the number of school students who use Facebook increased from 17 percent in 2009 to 85 percent now.

The survey says that Facebook is the favorite among students to connect with their peer group. Other social sites like Orkut and India-based networks like Apnacircle, iBibo and Hi5 have more popularity only in mini-metros compared to metros. As per the survey reports Twitter has not yet achieved much popularity among children in India.

The survey finds out that 84.3 percent of urban children in India use internet from their homes. The students who use internet at cyber cafes have decreased from 46 percent in 2009 to 20 percent now. “Research for School” is the main access for students to use computers at school and most of the time it is followed by the social reasons like chatting/connecting with friends and listening to music. 74 percent children use internet for school-related research. The number of Indian students who access internet through PC is 68 percent.

Other findings of survey say that among gadgets children prefer mobile phone for communication. Survey figures 79 percent children who own mobile phones. 59 percent of students make voice calls to communicate and the 45 percent use email as a mode of communication. Interestingly 33 percent of students spent more than one hour on internet every day and 34 percent prefer IT as the first option for a career.

It is true that Facebook has a screening system where the birth date of the applicants is being asked and those below the prescribed are rejected.  But the children are clever enough to create accounts through false birth dates.

Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) has been restricting the children under 13 who post personal information on Facebook that can be publicly viewed. The act forbids sites from the knowing disclosing of children’s personally identifiable information. “We are very concerned about kids eliding around COPPA’s restrictions,” Federal Trade Commission chair Jon Leibowitz said. The findings prove that even these restrictions are not enough in front of our clever children.

The consumer reports’ survey also says that only 18 percent of parents make their child a Facebook friend. Parents are largely unconcerned about their children since only 10 percent of parents of kids 10 and under had open talks about appropriate online behavior and threats.

All the surveys reveals out the fact that the future generation is very much technology oriented. When the basic instinct to communicate itself is accomplished by social networks like Facebook, addiction towards technology is increasing on children. The time when the social values replace scientific values is not far away.

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Google India Slapped with Income Tax Notice

The search engine giant Google is facing heat from Indian telecom ministry and Income tax department at the same time. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said to Google and other social networking sites to monitor their content and was planning to pull up Google, now the tax department has slapped Google India.

The Government of India has also requested Google to remove around 358 items off its services including YouTube and Orkut.

Google is among the few large scale Internet ventures, to be profitable in the Indian market. Ninety-nine percent of Google’s revenue is derived from its advertising programs. Google India runs the Adwords programme whereby advertisements that appear on its website are sold in India to Indian business establishments.

Income tax department gave notice for Google India for not reveling correct revenues and for not producing its entire income for taxation. The profit and loss account filed by the company is not very clear to the IT department.

Tax department has questioned about paying tax on Google India’s net income which it gets from advertisements after crediting a sizeable amount as distribution fees to Google Ireland. It also built an argument on the basis of the contract between Google India and Google Ireland as Google India is conducting business and obtaining revenue from Adwords programme on its own account and the IT department wants the net income for Adwords programme only.

Tax department has estimated that in the 2008-09, Google India has admitted revenue of only 7.49 crore instead of showing the actual revenue of 167.32 crore. In addition to that tax was deducted at source (TDS) against the amount credited to Google Ireland. Based on the tax on gross income and TDS the department has made a claim of 74 crore for the year.

Google said that there is no error in accounting of revenue as it is  dealing with Google Ireland at arm’s length for which adequate documentation has been maintained.

The decision of the department is expected to be of great significance as it would be applicable for other search engines also if the revenue is generated from India, even though the platform may be based offshore.

Many IT firms like Infosys, Wipro, Mahindra Satyam has also received notice from tax department before Google India. In August 2011, the department has ordered Satyam Computer Services, currently Mahindra Satyam, to pay a tax of 2,114 crore for assessment years 2002-03 and 2007-08. The Additional Commissioner of Income Tax has sent draft of proposed assessment orders together with draft notices to the company under the Income Tax Act, 1961, for 1,037.69 crore and 1,075.73 crore for assessment years 2002-03 and 2007-08, respectively. The draft of the proposed assessment orders proposes among disallowance of tax exemptions or deductions claimed by the company.

In February 2011, the department has also slapped a tax demand of over 450 crore on software giant Infosys Technologies for wrongfully claiming tax exemption on onshore services by declaring them as software exports. Infosys rival Wipro also got an inquiry notice from the Income Tax Department in May 2011 for the assessment year 2008-09.

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Govt wanted 358 Web posts removed from Google: report

Google has received government requests to remove 358 items from its services, including those in YouTube and Orkut, during the January-June period, according to a report by the Internet search giant.

As many as 255 requests cited government criticism as reason, a Google Transparency Report has said. The government had asked Google to remove 236 items from Orkut and 19 items from YouTube for the same reason, it added.

Other reasons include defamation (39 requests), privacy and security (20 requests), impersonation (14 requests), hate speech (8 requests), pornography (3 requests) and national security (1 request).

As much as 51 per cent of the total requests were partially or fully complied with, the report said.

The information assumes significance in the backdrop of the raging controversy over the screening of content on social networking sites. Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal has asked them to screen derogatory, defamatory and inflammatory content about political leaders and religion.