BANGALORE, INDIA: Unveiling its plans today to offer users a whole new experience, Google announced the launch of a new, faster and easier to use Orkut.

Sporting a refreshing look and built entirely on the more efficient Google Web Toolkit (GWT) infrastructure, the new Orkut comes bundled with a host of exciting features and user interface enhancements said the press release.

The Orkut experience that is launching will include the ability to discover friends automatically, video chat integrated with Google Talk, ability to upload photos in bulk very quickly, add/view photos and videos in-line, and a more interactive activity stream.

Vinay Goel, head of products, Google India said "Orkut is an integral part of Google's larger social web strategy which allows users to interact, engage and collaborate. We are committed to evolve our offerings to ensure the best user experience on all our platforms. The new Orkut experience is built from scratch on one of the latest, fast and flexible technology platforms which will enable us to roll out exciting new features during the next few months."

Fun features like posting video testimonials, changing the colors of the content boxes and expressing user personality with prominent applications on the profile page enhance the personalization aspects of Orkut.

The adoption of Google Web Toolkit platform and the evolution of the interface come after a series of innovations and improvements on Orkut through the year which include features such as built-in simultaneous chat, photo tagging with automatic face detection, private sharing of photo albums, safety features, and Orkut for iPhone, S60 and J2ME-based mobile phones.

Google sees this as the beginning of a new direction for Orkut where users will be able to increasingly share and communicate with groups of real friends from their lives.