Orkut Testimonials can have an effect on the sub-conscious
I don't know why, but I just felt this was a valid point. As the heading suggests, the testimonials section on orkut is bothering me a bit. I have no problems with the idea of having other people write each other testimonials, but my shout and cry is with the way its designed and the probable impact that it can have.
The testimonials appear on the Profile page by default, and appear on the professional and personal pages too. As I was browinsg through my friends list, and their friends, and their friends, and so on (which is the purpose of orkut), I kept seeing that so many of them had testimonisla written. Invariably, these testimonials are very positive in emotion and sentiment. Smart, brainy, wonderful, lovely, sweet, best friend, bestest friend, charm, comfort, comforting, love, lovable, loving, and many more. How does it feel after reading that sentence?
The book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell explains somewhere how the mind can be influenced by a series of english words one is exposed to. He explains that the mind gets tuned to negative emotions when exposed to some negative and destructive words. Not good, right? The case is just the opposite here, too much of something good can also be bad. Thats what I saw happening here. I did not come across one testimonial where there was something negative that anyone had to say. Of course I realise that that is the very purpose of a testimonial. You aren't gonna get a testimonial from someone who doesn't like you, or who has some revealing facts to say about you. Thus, my botheration with the design and the way it appears too often.
Don't know if that made sense, but a point worth pondering about…..
don’t know whether too muchaa good can be bad.. but too muchaa orkut definitely is..
Just read an orkut related post in http://no-url-left.blogspot.com.
Bindu
May 13, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Will you accept a testimonial which is something bad about you, who will want their negative face to be exposed ?! thats why they gave options to accept or reject any testimonial written for one
Parth
May 17, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Definitely agree. Testimonials, I guess, were intended just as a feel-good-hug kinda thing. Now they’re useless, like Whose Line Is It Anyway points. The only good thing about them, from a web-designer’s point of view, is that it gives a sense of ’society’ to the page; other people talking rather than only the page-owner. Useless, I say.
Abhijit Shylanath
July 29, 2006 at 3:36 pm
wel i dont think………dat testimonials r useless coz i feel i a nice way 2 express ur feelings 4 ur fren………n obviously if one is ur fren n ur writin a testimonial 4 him or her…………u doin it bcoz u like d person………n therefore d all gud words n phrase r natural………
princess
March 13, 2008 at 8:56 pm
i belive testimonal says wat tat person ia all about
ofcourse nobody loves to hear anything -ve abt themselves
n i dont think anybody has guts to send his near dear one testi saying “u r btich u did this to ma n tat to ma lyfe **** off…..” n stuff
at least not on orkut yaaa…
one has to stay in d same society
2morow some1 else wud cum n write a similar testi for tat person
ita always tit for tat for everthg in this world…..
archa khandelwal
August 23, 2008 at 2:27 pm