danah boyd just gave a wonderful answer to a question that’s fascinated me for a while: why are there so many Brazilians on Orkut? danah’s speaking on a panel on social networking software at SXSW and just told the following story, based on interviews she did with Brazilian Orkut users:

Because the Orkut statistics page features country flags to represent membership, it looks a bit like the results page for the World Cup. Given Brazilian love for soccer, their response to the page was to take it as a challenge - let’s kick everyone’s asses. So people asked their friends to come online and show the Brazilian flag.

Orkut has also helped a mobile Brazilian population keep up social connections despite people moving to new cities and countries. But danah’s story is just wonderful…