Orkut or not

Orkut was a social networking site that was created by a Google employee, named Orkut Büyükkökten. The site was owned and operated by Google in 2004 but was later shutdown in 2014. Orkut was less than popular in the United States than the competition Facebook and MySpace, but it was one of the most visited social media sites in Brazil and India. In April of 2010 almost 50-percet of the Orkut users were from Brazil, while India came in with just under 40-percent, but the US was represented by only 2.2- percent.

Orkut started off being hosted in the US, but in 2008 Google decided to manage and operate everything in Brazil. They decided to do so, since there was a large Brazilian user base and the legal issues that kept arising.

Orkut technically got started as a failed acquisition by Google to purchase the social network Friendster. Google then internally assigned Büyükkökten to work on an independent project to compete, which birthed Orkut, with a product launch date of January 24, 2004.

Orkut started off as an invitation only membership.

“Orkut is unique and fun, because it’s an organically growing network of trusted friends. That way we will all have at least one person to vouch for them. If you know someone who is a member of Orkut, that person can invite you to join as well. If you don’t know an Orkut member, wait a bit and most likely you soon will. We look forward to having you as part of the Orkut community.”

The social network saw the largest US user base in the first year, but Brazilians began to adopt and invite more friends, which was bolstered by the use of blogosphere. American users started to dwindle, due to users leaving and jumping ship to the competitors such as MySpace and Friendster. Blogosphere covered this phenomenon criticizing the Brazilians, because they started to communicate in Portuguese, and not English.

Orkut was just like all of the other social networking sites, having the same features, such as adding friends, sending messages, and maintaining a profile. With a profile on Orkut you could maintain your scrapbook, rate your friends’ profiles or even form groups with friends and family and conduct community polls.

Orkut of course had some unique features that are still missed today, be it the then scandalous ‘crush list’ or even the testimonials the users wrote to each other and then you could customize the themes for your page with was not the case with the other social media profiles.

Orkut had two major redesigns; the first one included an ‘update from friends’ box on the homepage, profiles were allowed to be in different languages and a feature upgrade in the way to view the number of friends. The second restructuring was done using Google Web Toolkit (GWT), thus making extensive use of AJAX in the user interface and also made it to allow the users could sign in with the Gmail credentials.

Orkut did not really have anything that allowed it to stand out amongst the competition, whereas Facebook was in full swing with its update, capturing most of the user traffic then. With that came the familiar ‘Facebook Revolution’ which changed the game upside down.

Can you really put the blame on Facebook for Orkut’s deterioration? There were three major issues, which led to the failure of Orkut: structural, strategic and market shift.

Within the structural issues there was slow speed, after its several redesigns and the increasing popularity it took a long time to get the site to load. Due to the increased number of users over a short time frame. The complex upgrade features were neither engaging nor were they in relevance to simplification of usage. This is what started pushing away users to try Facebook as the taskbar with the notification, messages and the friends icon made it simple. The product issues with Orkut was always seen as being neglected and stagnant. When someone view anyone’s profile on Orkut if the user added their information It was viewable, without being their friend, unless you were on their ignore list; another reason people were moving to Facebook. Facebook appeared to be a safer platform for them.

The strategic issues looked at as an issue since Orkut was slow with their updates, it was not business friendly and Google focused on other projects, that they felt were bigger and better. When comparing upgrades for Orkut to Facebook, Facebook’s features evolved constantly with time. It was a complete package with a better newsfeed, simple post and easy personal and group chats. Facebook also added the ‘login with Facebook’ button on other platforms, which made it easier and faster for users to access other websites. Meanwhile, Orkut could not even satisfy the privacy concerns of their users, nor did it come up with new and interesting features to provide an engaging platform for the long run. Orkut was limited to personal interactions in the major part of its life span, Facebook emerged as a huge platform for online marketing and advertisement. Facebook ads changed the game, allowing for growing networks with time made it an easy platform for business expansion and advertisement. Google’s focus on the projects like YouTube and Google+ resulted in the company’s ignorance of Orkut. Some believed that it was better for Google to put more effort into Orkut instead of releasing Google+, which never took off.

The market shift that happened to Orkut, was caused by with Facebook became mainstream in the US, Brazil took over Orkut. Users abandoned Orkut to try Facebook, even though Orkut’s community feature was interesting to many Facebook had the advantage of a ready newsfeed where people did not have to hunt for content. Facebook did everything to try and stay ahead of the market, whereas Orkut remained stagnant. The company failed to understand its user demands in the market. With the growth of Facebook and the bloom of Twitter and Instagram the events gradually resulted in Orkut’s shutdown in 2014. On September 30, 2014, it was finally decided that Orkut would be dissolved by Google, with one last parting note in its last Orkut blog.

“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 be Orkut farewell.”

However, Orkut has made a comeback with Hello, the next generation of Orkut. Similar to the original Orkut, Hello brings people together, this time connecting them based on their interest. This app is focusing more on what is relevant to the audience and allowing them to personalize the app to meet their needs. Hopefully if Hello plans to grow they have a better plan and take action at a faster rate than the original. If they constantly monitor and evaluate the platform and keep giving the audience what they desire, then I can see Hello blossoming to something special.

References:

Case Study is from the textbook: Strategic Social Media: From Marketing To Social Change, Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2017), page 191

Singh, S. (2019, September 23). 7 Reasons Why Orkut Failed. Retrieved December 20, 2019, from https://www.feedough.com/why-did-orkut-fail/.

Summers, N. (2014, September 30). Google Shuts Down its Orkut Social Network. Retrieved December 20, 2019, from https://thenextweb.com/google/2014/09/30/google-kills-orkut-first-foray-social-networking/.