well, i am going to post on this after all and warn you to try to steer clear, if you can.
orkut is very dead these days.
but here's another problem: lack of support.
a bunch of people signed up a long while ago, then all of a sudden, you had to get a google id. although i did this, and the system will not let me log in anymore. i can no longer edit anything. they claim to have a system to merge an old account with a new google account, but it no workie. no, none of this will apply to you, but
this will... there is NO support for ANYTHING related to orkut. something goes wrong? lost password? forget your login 10 months later because you didn't sign in? you're outta luck. all you'll get is form-letter emails. i fully expect this to be, more or less, an indicator of the way
google (go ahead, click, it's not google, it's about google) will continue to do things. they expand and expand and never look back. kinda like microsoft... "we forge ahead and please don't bother us with whatever messes we leave in our wake..."