Orkut, Google’s first social
networking site, will cease to exist after September after giving in to
competition and ageing not so gracefully. After its launch in 2004, the same
year when Facebook was founded, Orkut had taken the Indian youth by storm.
While Facebook took its own sweet time to gain popularity in India, till
2009-10 it was Orkut that ruled the roost, post which it lost sheen to rivals
like Facebook.
In 2004, with
the launch of Orkut, India was introduced to the novel concept of networking
online. The excitement of adding that hot girl next door as a ‘friend’ and
snooping into the campus stud’s ‘album’ made Orkut an instant hit amongst the
Indian youth. Orkut allowed the comfort of writing your heart out on your
friend’s ‘scrapbook’ but most importantly, it made it possible to re-unite with
old childhood buddies and former classmates, who were usually lost in the rat
race of life.
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Prasad
Pankar, Goa’s well known photographer, says, “Although words like wall, status,
timeline, posts may have taken us by storm today, let’s not forget that it all
began with Orkut, at least for us Indians. Even though I have not visited my
Orkut account in ages, I feel sad that it’s going to be discontinued. I have
immense sentimental value for Orkut because it has got me in touch with some
people who today are my closest of friends.” Sagar Bhatt, an IT professional,
says, “The thing that started it all for us about social networking in our
college days is about to die. Bye bye Orkut! I can’t say you’ll be missed, but
you’ll always be remembered.”
Although
‘testimonials’ and ‘scraps’ between friends have been scrapped long ago, Orkut
is more like ‘hotmail’ in the time of ‘gmail’. As we bid farewell to India’s
first social networking site, let us do so bearing in mind that Orkut will
always be Indian youth’s first tryst with social networking romance.
