Anti asks me, if I think this is real (For those of you uncool enough to not have an Orkut account, it’s an alleged Orkut profile of John Kerry).

Networking software like Friendster, Orkut were supposed to be the next killer apps. There was even Dogster. Lonely Internet nerds and cynical yuppies were supposed to find like-minded people who were friends of friends and do “stuff” with them. Social Networking was supposed to bring you jobs, friends, hobbies, and who knows, maybe even romance. Did anything of this happen to me when I signed up at Orkut?

I spent a couple of hours creating and modifying a profile that would somehow make me seem more interesting than I actually am. And then I waited. Nothing happened. No one emailed asking me if I wanted to go see Bubba Hotep. No one called me up for a game of tennis. No secret admirer sent me flash sites with slow-fade roses. Maybe I should have taken the initiative and mailed my friend’s friend in oh say, Tennessee. But then, what next?

I’m not sure if there is a strong desi community in Orkut. I’ve noticed a lot of south American people, though. Still, the question remains: Do social networking software actually yield fruitful results, or is just an elite version of Yahoo! chat? Dvorak says it better.