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"Google's Orkut is kind of the awkward step-child of the social media world. Yes, it's big in Brazil and some other countries, but for the most part, it has always played a distant third fiddle to Facebook and Myspace.\r\n\r\nSo it's always a bit shocking when we hear Orkut come out with something new, especially when it comes out with some very interesting news like it did today: Orkut is now 'badgeified'.\r\n\r\nYep, Orkut now offers badges for its users for anything from &amp;quot;Early User&amp;quot; (has been using Orkut for more than 5 years) to &amp;quot;Millionaire Community&amp;quot; (owns a community with more than a million members).\r\n\r\nSo, Orkut is all swell and stuff, but what we're really interested in is what this could portend for Google's social initiatives. Google Me - or whatever it ends up being called - would\u00A0presumably\u00A0have both gaming elements (witness the acquisition of Slide) and location features (which we think is Google's strongest suit in social). Both of those elements are ingrained in the Foursquare-invented badge system, so this integration into Orkut could easily be headed to Google Me in the future.\r\n\r\nGoogle also has put badges into at least one other product: for its electricity saving box.\r\n\r\nGoogle Badges everywhere? Yes, please!\r\n\r\nHere's a couple of screenshots offered up on the Orkut blog:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/google/2010/11/30/orkut-becomes-first-social-network-to-offer-badges-google-me-preview/orkut_badges_1en/>