NEW DELHI: The Orkut team on Monday said that the social network would shut down on September 30 this year. It also announced that from today, Orkut, which is owned by Google, would stop accepting new users.
The social media site, which was once a force to reckon with, gradually lost to websites like Facebook and Twitter. Once one of the most visited websites in countries like Brazil and India, Orkut by 2010 had become so irrelevant that Google was forced to launch Google+ to take on Facebook.
Still millions of people continued to visit Orkut. According to the data available on the website, 50% of Orkut users are based in Brazil while 20% are from India.
"We will shut down Orkut on September 30, 2014. Until then, there will be no impact on current Orkut users, to give the community time to manage the transition," Paulo Golgher, engineering director of Orkut, wrote in a blog. "People can export their profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout (available until September 2016). Starting today, it will not be possible to create a new Orkut account."
"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 (or, tchau)," explained Golgher.
Orkut, which was started in 2004, saw impressive early growth. But after Facebook, which too started in 2004, started gaining pace, Orkut started losing the social media race. After 2008 it became the numero uno social media site in Brazil and India but in other countries, it lost to Facebook. Gradually, Facebook took over Orkut even in Brazil and India. In India, Facebook surpassed Orkut in terms of total registered users in 2010. In Brazil, the same happened in 2012.
(Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Buyukkokten.)
"It's been a great 10 years, and we apologize to those still actively using the service. We hope people will find other online communities to spark more conversations and build even more connections for the next decade and beyond," wrote Golgher.
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