Orkut to be linked with Google+

It was inevitable. Google is now letting Orkut users link to their Google+ profiles. This effectively means that people will be sharing their posts on both social networks.

Except, the integration goes a little deeper than that. In an official blog post, the internet giant says:

After you link your profiles, your Orkut profile photo and name will be the same as your Google+ photo and name. In addition, you will be able to share all your public Google+ posts with your Orkut friends. Your Google+ posts to limited audience or specific circles will remain on Google+ only and will be subject to your privacy settings. As a result, linking your profiles will also make it easier for your Orkut friends to find you on Google+.

If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, the company does say that you can decide whether or not you want to integrate the two networks. That probably goes a little way to alleviating worries about Orkut’s future, which has been in doubt since Google+’s mid-2011 launch.

Orkut wwas one of Google’s earliest social efforts, having launched in 2004. Following the rise of MySpace and Facebook, it was quickly forgotten in the West but remained popular in emerging market countries such as India and Brazil. As of October 2011, 59.1% of Orkut’s users are from Brazil, followed by India with 27.1% and Japan with 6.7%.

Even in these countries however it is on the decline, with Brazil recently having overtaken India as the country with the world’s second-biggest Facebook population. In fact, Brazil now has some 48-million Facebook users, significantly more than the 34-million Orkut saw in December 2011.