The Social Networking site Orkut, is shutting down today. The site was started by Google back in 2004 with the aim to get people to connect with family and friends on the internet. Orkut had won the MTV Youth Icon Award in the year 2007. In fact, a lot of us will remember Orkut as our first social network. The site initially used to get its main traffic from the USA, Japan and then Brazil. Slowly these statistics changed and Brazil had the highest share of its users followed by India. Even today as it shutting down, around 42% of its traffic still comes from Brazil.
Orkut was very famous for scrapbooks in which users used to scrap which today is known as a wall and a message. With the growing popularity of Facebook, Orkut slowly started losing user base. It didn’t help them much that their site was hounded with fake profiles. While Facebook need one to have a real full name to make an account, Orkut had one person have multiple accounts with no proper name. Apart from fake profiles, hate groups controversies also marred them.
There also was a case of Orkut being the main mode of communication for the transfer of drugs at a busted rave party in Pune. Similarly, in Brazil, Orkut was caught up in child pornography cases. On 30th June, 2014 Google announced that Orkut would be shutting down on 30th September, 2014. Google engineering director Paul Golgher said in a blog post: “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”.
Orkut was said to be born out of an idea that came up in the 20% of the time in which Google employees focus on things other than their job responsibilities. Today, Google Plus is their entity that has replaced Orkut. Saying that, Facebook continues to remain way more popular. We will have to see how these stats change as new social networks are launched so often; the latest being Ello. Going back in time, testimonials on Orkut meant the world to many, especially if it came from a loved one. Orkut, you will remembered but sadly not missed.
