It seems as if the boys and girls at Google world were a little busy designing a new layout for the Community arena within Orkut. The layout looks smoother and more professional, and both Orkut and Joga users will notice this change.

Users can not only see all of the forums they are members of, but also separate whether or not they want to simply view their Joga forums...



...or just scroll through their Orkut communities.



Users can also see which communities they own...



...as well as which ones they are still awaiting membership for.



Google also has also moved the category list for forums to the side rather than the bottom of the user screen.

The Google team seems to be making some serious updates within Orkut, probably in order to compete against rivals such as MySpace (which is probably the reason they are testing Google Ads within Orkut).

Hopefully more of these changes will attract other Nationals towards Orkut, (especially Americans) as Brazil has dominated the forums for ages.

About the author: Darnell Clayton is a Financial Services Professional who helps families and clients save money for their retirement accounts instead of Uncle Sam's wallet.

Previously he was in the Information Technology field, which helped him acquire his "geek-like" powers.

He currently blogs at Inside Orkut detailing what goes on inside Google's community forums.