At one time, Orkut was more popular than Facebook.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: Google pulled the plug of the once celebrated social networking site, Orkut, on September 30.
Before Google ventured into Google Plus, they acquired Orkut as the gateway into the social networking realm, but unfortunately missing the target by a large margin due to the stiff competition put in by Facebook and Twitter.
The shutting down of Orkut comes at a time when even the future of Google Plus is being questioned. Earlier in the month Google had decided to take Authorship out of search results, which required all users to link Google + profile with their pages.
Even after the launch of Google plus, the tech giant struggled, trailing behind Facebook and Twitter, but the results were better than what Orkut provided during the final days.
Orkut wasn’t a global phenomenon like Facebook. It became popular in a few countries like India and Brazil where sharing photos and videos was something new.
“Over the past decade, YouTube, Blogger and Google+ have taken off, with communities springing up in every corner of the world. Because the growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut’s growth, we’ve decided to bid Orkut farewell.” said the official blog post of Google.
Google has said that it will archive all Orkut communities even after the shutting down. Google has advised users to deactivate their accounts permanently if they don’t wish to archive their old communities.
“If you don’t want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account,” Google said.
Orkut and Facebook were started in 2004. In the initial days Orkut jumped over Facebook, but soon Facebook leapt over it, garnering more than 1.2 billion users, becoming the world’s largest social networking site. Google officials are yet to comment on the number of active users in Orkut.
If the news about the closing down of Orkut had appeared a few years ago, it would have been a shock for many; but time has elapsed and Orkut is now lingering somewhere in the memory lane, far too away from the emotional ambit.