Google's Carnival

If Google's social technosphere Orkut.com were a country, its primary resident would not be the Silicon Valleyites you might expect to be bouncing around the Googleplex waiting to be enriched by a multibillion-dollar IPO. Or even an American urbanite scouting for a mate, job or well-connected friend.

Rather, Orkut is more a backdrop for a digital Carnival, with single, dark-haired, dark-eyed 20-something Brazilians opting to stay indoors and click with the computer. That's what a composite of the demographics and member statistics reveals at the experimental social-networking site, which Mountain View, Calif.-based Google began trials of in January but has yet to widely launch.

Brazilians make up nearly 40 percent of Orkut members, while Americans count for 25 percent, according to the statistics. While Google would not divulge how many subscribers Orkut has, the networking site has at least inspired fanaticism among people in Silicon Valley and Brazil alike.

Orkut invites people to sign up, fill out a personal profile and then connect to friends--or friends of friends--for networking, dating or other events. It also lets people create communities to discuss a particular topic, and anyone on Orkut can join in. Several communities have cropped up to talk about an influx of Brazilians.

The community titles are self-explanatory: "Help I can't speak Portuguese" and "WTF Why the Crazy Brazilian Invasion." At least one Brazilian Orkut member explained it by saying Brazilian's are more extroverted: "There's something called 'diversity'. The world is big."