Farewell, Orkut! A worthy warrior of the social networking revolution

Today Google officially informed by email that their Orkut service is shutting down. Although I already knew about it. On June 30, 2014, Google announced that their Orkut service ( www.orkut.com ) will officially be shut down on September 30, 2014. Many from the current Facebook generation do not know that once upon a time Facebook was nothing compared to Orkut. Orkut was born in January 2004 and Facebook in February 2004. Of course, Facebook was not the first in the world of social networking. Orkut wasn’t the first either. Let’s take a look at the early history of the social media or networking that has caused revolutions around the world and has become an essential part of our daily lives. Information about platforms that came after Facebook is not included in this list.

The idea of computer-based social media came in 1979 through Usenet. After that, several similar initiatives succeeded. The first bulletin board also appeared in the same year. Interestingly, that system allowed only one person to access it at a time.

Then from around 1988 came IRC, ICQ, etc., for chat and messaging.

Then in 1997 the concept of social networking appeared. However, it was a dating site, not the multi-dimensional concept we have today.

SixDegrees was the first modern social network that allowed users to create personal profiles and make friends, in 1997.

After that came AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, and others.

The modern blog-style LiveJournal appeared in 1999. It was the first site that allowed community blogging.

World of Warcraft in 2000.

Friendster ( friendster.com ) came in 2002, adding many modern features and becoming the first general social network. It is still quite popular.

In June 2003, Hi5 ( hi5.com ) created a new history. Hi5 introduced multi-dimensional profile privacy options.

In 2003, the business-related social network LinkedIn ( linkedin.com ) was born.

In July 2003, MySpace ( myspace.com ) was launched, and by 2006 it became the most popular social networking site in the world.

In February 2004, Facebook ( facebook.com ) launched exclusively on the Harvard University campus. Later it spread to nearby schools and colleges.

Until 2008, Orkut was ahead of Facebook. Especially in large-population countries like India and Brazil, it had dominant popularity. After 2008, Facebook began to rise globally. Once-popular MySpace and Hi5 had already started to fall behind. As Facebook brought major changes to its appearance, policies, and structure, Orkut began to lag. Another obstacle for Orkut was privacy. Even though many privacy changes were made in 2009, it never regained its lost past. Later, unable to compete with Facebook, Google introduced Google Buzz and Google Waves. Those also eventually became dead products. Later Google Plus became moderately popular. I won’t even start talking about the miserable state of Microsoft’s Live Network. Yahoo’s 360 Degrees wasn’t even in the competition.

A few years after the sudden death of Orkut’s developer, his creation is also dying on September 30 of this year. Orkut was the first social network of my life. In late 2006, when I had just moved from cyber cafés to having my own internet access, I somehow discovered Orkut one day. It was 2007 — I was a master’s student and also working a job. Back then, Orkut was something I used constantly. I made many good online friends through Orkut. December Rain was one of them. Jeripu, living in India at the time, was also within the most-used network there. Because of Facebook’s dull appearance, I barely looked at Facebook until 2007. From 2008, like many others, I gradually drifted away from Orkut. Still, many memories of Orkut make me nostalgic.

Goodbye Orkut!

[Pic, CC BY-SA 2.0 and Pic, CC BY-SA 3.0 ]