KaKoo

Popular Brazilian-based social networking site Orkut has finally gotten its own app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

The free app for Orkut – a site launched by Google in 2004 which now has 66 million active members – allows users to post status updates, pictures and chat with others.

However, the app is slightly overdue. In fact, earlier this week it was revealed that Facebook overtook Orkut as Brazil’s most-popular social network in December. Its popularity in Brazil — where 60% of Orkut’s users are based — led to it being hosted and managed by Google Brazil from 2008 onwards.

In addition, Google+ is also picking up steam in Brazil. It alone raked in 4.3 million users last month.

But even still, the app has been much-anticipated for awhile now and Orkut users will certainly be glad to finally gain access to the site on the go. The app is now available for download via the Apple App Store.

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Facebook, following a year of whirlwind growth, overtook Orkut as Brazil’s most-popular social network in December.

Orkut is a social network that Google launched in 2004. Its popularity in Brazil, where 60% of Orkut’s users are based, led to it being hosted and managed by Google Brazil from 2008 onwards.

Facebook’s user base increased 192% during 2011, according to a comScore report released Tuesday. In December 2010, 12.4 million Brazilians visited Facebook.com. One year later, that number skyrocketed to 36 million Brazilians.

In contrast, Orkut’s user base hardly increased, gaining less than 2 million visitors.

“Facebook’s rapid ascent in the Brazilian market has certainly been one of the most interesting stories to develop during the course of 2011,” says Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil. “Brazil has always been a particularly social market and currently owns the fifth largest social networking population in the world. But despite the cultural affinity for social media, Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market.”

Now that Facebook dominates Brazilian social networking, there are only six countries remaining — China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Poland and Russia — where Facebook is not the premiere network.

SEE ALSO: World Domination: Facebook Looks to End Orkut’s Hold on Brazil

As more Brazilians flocked to Facebook, the audience became more engaged. Visitors spent 4.8 hours, on average, on Facebook in December, compared to just 37 minutes a year earlier. December visitors viewed 500 pages of content and returned to the site 27 times throughout the month.

Do you use Orkut and Facebook? Which do your prefer, and why?

More About: Brazil, Facebook, orkut

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AOL and Google have taken their instant messaging partnership to a new level with complete interoperability among AIM, Gmail and Google Talk.

Gmail users have been able to access their AIM account through Google Talk since 2007, but AIM accounts couldn’t message Google Talk accounts and vice versa. The juggling of two IM accounts has limited the usefulness of AIM within Gmail. Google announced in blog post, though, that the two companies have made some interoperability changes to their chat clients.

The first big change is that AIM users can now send messages to their Google contacts and vice versa. This works no matter which client a person is using, so they can IM a friend that uses AIM via Google Talk, Gmail, iGoogle, Orkut or any other Gtalk client. Gmail users will now see a prompt asking them to add their AIM buddies directly to Gtalk. Users will have to add @aol.com to the end of the AIM contact they are trying to add to make it work (e.g. screenname@aol.com).

Because users can add AIM contacts directly through Gmail, Google has removed the ability to sign in via AIM. This would normally be a problem for Google users that have hundreds of AIM contacts in their Gmail chat client, but AOL has created a tool to help them quickly add their AIM buddies to Gmail.

The changes may not affect users immediately, but they are big changes. AOL and Google have tens of millions of instant messenging users each. Combining their user bases makes both chat platforms far more useful, which could help them fend off competition. They need to worry about Facebook, whose FbChat service has grown in popularity, and Skype, which has more than 500 million users and is now owned by Microsoft.

More About: aim, aol, facebook, facebook chat, fbchat, gchat, gmail, Google, google talk, gtalk, iGoogle, orkut, Skype

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