Orkut Gets Major Upgrades

Google just added Talk to Orkut. Finally! Orkut was one of those tools that was OK but became pointless rather fast. Now you can chat with your Orkut friends. Heck, you can even make voice calls. Google's official blog announced:

If your friends are online and using Google Talk, you'll see a brightly-colored ball by their name. Green means they're available; orange means they're away from their computer; and red means they're busy. But no matter which color, if you see that ball, it means you can chat with or call your friends in just a couple of clicks.

Remember how Orkut used to be by invitation only? Not anymore. In the best news of all, Orkut membership is now open to everyone. Yay! I'm also hoping that this means they've added servers to avoid service disruption and that they're beefing up ways to prevent and remove spam accounts.

• Get your Orkut account at www.orkut.com.
• Read a review of Orkut.
• Learn how to see a map of your Orkut friends.