Google’s social networking site Orkut seems to be growing briskly in India. In the

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past one year, the number of Orkut users has swelled to 17.1 million -- up by about 80 per cent. India now has 18 per cent share of the total number of Orkut users worldwide, bettered only by Brazil and the US .

“India has been exciting for us. The next phase of growth for us will come from tier-II and III cities here,” says Rahul Kulkarni, Google’s product manager (India). This growth in Orkut numbers is higher than internet growth in India, the company says. The Google Internet Bus is one such initiative that spreads awareness about the internet and social networking in rural areas.

“We have evolved our applications as well. It’s not only communities that are getting formed, but NGOs too are being put together on Orkut,” says Kulkarni, explaining the reasons behind Orkut’s growth in India. Kulkarni, however, stopped short of predicting how the growth rate will be for the next year.

The next trend in social networking, according to Google, will be interoperability of sites. “This could mean Facebook and Twitter users will be able to operate Orkut seamlessly,” says Kulkarni.