Google Adds Video Feature on Orkut

Google has announced the addition of a new video feature on its social networking site, Orkut. A recent post on the Google blog, by Anisha Malhotra, Software Engineer, reveals that Orkut users will now be able to share their videos from Google-owned video sharing site, YouTube or Google Videos.

Orkut users will have the ability to post the video link on their profile page or create an entire playlist of videos, to share with friends. Users are required to copy the URL from YouTube or Google Video hosted videos, and paste it on their respective profile pages. The videos added, are only links to videos on Google Video or YouTube. Each video is played from Google Video or YouTube through Orkut.

Orkut has also added an ‘Add to my favorites’ button, to let users make each others’ favorite videos appear on their own profile pages. To report a malicious video, users are required to click the ‘Report as abuse’ link below the video. This link is only visible when title of the video is clicked on. Clicking the ‘Report as abuse’ link will lead users to the hosting site’s (either Google Video or YouTube) abuse reporting page. After the host site removes the link, it will no longer be visible through Orkut.

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However, users have pointed out that there is no RSS/Atom feeds for this list. Other international social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook have had the video feature for a long time now. Also, the official Google blog does not mention any plans to let Orkut users upload videos from video sharing sites, other than the Google-owned ones.