Today Google announced plans to shutting down of its Orkut On September 30, 2014 after which users will be unable to log in or export their photo albums to Google+.
Google announced that Orkut fans would still be able to export all of their data using Google Takeout for another two years until September 2016. Starting today, it will be impossible for newcomers to create a new Orkut account because sign-ups for new accounts have been disabled. Existing users can access the service as normal. However, Google says that Orkut’s online communities will be preserved and available online even after Orkut shuts down.
According to Google’s engineering Director Paulo Golgher:
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). We’ll be focusing our energy and resources on making these other social platforms as amazing as possible for everyone who uses them.
Orkut was once one of the most popular sites in Brazil and India. In Brazil, Orkut wasn’t until January 2012 and in India it wasn’t until 2010 because that Facebook finally overtook it there. As well, the creation of Google+ three years ago, the end of Orkut was only a matter of time. 50 percent of Orkut users are still in Brazil, 20 percent in India and although Orkut never took off in the U.S. its just under 18 percent.
“It’s been a great 10 years, and we apologize to those still actively using the service,” Paulo Golgher at Google said. “We hope people will find other online communities to spark more conversations and build even more connections for the next decade and beyond.”
