Futuríveis

Are Brazilian teenagers staging a takeover of the world wide web? Quite possibly, judging from the strange developments over at Orkut, a website created last year by Google to tap into the internet's "social networking" craze. Like the best- known site, Friendster, Orkut lets users maintain a network of friends online, and through them reach others to find a date, land a job, or buy a car. For a while, the Google site was the coolest place for Silicon Valley's technorati to hang out. But internet communities develop a life of their own, and now more than 60 per cent of Orkut's users are Brazilian. Does this mean that Brazilians are more social than the rest of us? Adam Freed, head of international products at Google, is at a bit of a loss. "I'm not sure we know why [Orkut has turned Brazilian]," he says. "Communities will grow organically where they grow - we just try to support it." Orkut is not the only site to have succumbed to the Brazilian invasion. Fotolog.net, which lets users post their pictures to a personal webpage, seems to be the preserve of bronzed, bikini-clad bodies from the beaches of Rio. The site lists more than 300,000 Brazilian users - roughly five times as many as in the US, where it is based. Worse things that could happen.

FT.com