It was year 2005 and Orkut
was becoming a sensation in modern India. It was spreading virally. The Orkut
phenomenon was more viral than almost any word of mouth epidemic I have seen
(in India). Yes, even Twitter’s fast growth in India is no way near to the way
Orkut grew. It was almost like one fine morning you wake up and you find all
your friends (and family) addicted to a piece of Web App called Orkut. Orkut
captured the imagination of India youth to such a extent that it was awarded The MTV Youth Icon for
the year 2007. Orkut won the award inspite of competing with likes of Abhishek Bachchan, Rang De Basanti& Multimedia Cell Phones.
Orkut - MTV Youth Icon 2007
On reflecting back I think
Orkut’s popularity in India was because of one or more of the following
reasons.
1). Orkut had a very
low entry-barrier. It was dead simple. Unlike Myspace, hi5 (and ‘n’ number of other social networks) Orkut
had very less features making it more user friendly, less complicated.
2). For a majority of
Indians Orkut was their 1st social network. Orkut made Indians discover social
networking along with its addictive nature (more about “the nature of social
networking” in future post).
3). It had
very good (or cool) look and feel and Indian users almost considered
it as a bench mark in both design and quality because it was endorsed by
Google.
Orkut India
4). Orkut
made online contact management a cake walk. Integration with GMail (Google
contacts) made it even simpler. Note- Part of the reason Yahoo! Mail fell of
its knees in India
5). Orkut Album became
a default photo sharing hub. The semi-public nature of Orkut album was perfect
for Indians. Note – Part of the reason Flickr never took off in India
6). Scraps emerged as a
new messaging protocol. Scrapping someone was more appealing than sending a
short E-Mail (considering the user was ready to trade off the privacy and was
not available for chat).
Orkut == (YOU)th
7). Orkut Communities
emerged as powerful Forums to discuses and debate (although I never found
Orkut communities useful). Just a note -India Community on Orkut has around 1
million members with a rather hyper active Forum.
Few other trends of the
Orkut Era
1). Integrated nature
of Orkut and GMail killed Yahoo! Mail in India. Yahoo! Mail which not too
long back was default E-Mail address of Indians was now replaced by Gmail.
2). Then as Gmail became
popular the integration of Google Chat with GMail killed Yahoo! Messenger.
3). Although rest of the
world was busy uploading their latest photos on Flickr, Indians preferred
Orkut Album. Y? Because unlike Flickr, Orkut Album was semi-public in nature
with privacy options. Indians would never have been comfortable making their
online album 100% open to public gaze. Orkut Album never left any room for
Flickr.
So, Yahoo! was more or less
fading out of the Indian tech scene by 2008.
Statutory Warning : You
might not like what I am about to write.
It is year 2009 and Orkut
suck, it is boring, it is monotonous, it has way too less features with not
many apps, it is buggy (no donuts for you!),
Orkut is buggy
it does not facilitate
sharing, no vanity URL hence no public profile, Orkut communities still sucks,
scraps are dead (scraps? wtf? I tweet now!), no blog widgets, obviously I
cannot search and monitor real time data on Orkut unlike Facebook
(and Twitter) and it is does not help me drive traffic to TechDusts (I
know I am a selfish brat! but the fact remains that Twitter and Facebook alone
helps in bringing hundreds if not thousands of visitors to TechDusts everyday).
Times have changed and the
world is quickly moving towards the next generation of social networks where
scrapping is not as cool as updating your status message every hour. The
problem with Orkut is that after a certain point of time it did not evolve.
Unlike Facebook, Orkut never embraced real time sharing (like Twittter), Apps
(I know Orkut has App but they are in no way comparable to Facebook) and host
of other innovative feature like fan page, public profile etc. Orkut did not
realize that people are done with making friends and would get bored if they
are not served with new functionalities. Sorry to say Indian’s ex – youth icon
who earlier was at the centre stage of my online life now serves as my birthday
reminder boy. I never thought this would happen. I only log into Orkut to get
updated with upcoming birthdays of my friends.
Orkut's Fluctuating Traffic
in India Vs Facebook's Steady Growth
Facebook Ranked 4 (above
Orkut) in India
Social Network Map
People in India might get
offended with what I have written but the reality is – In a span of one year
Orkut has lost a huge share in India. It is losing heavily in Brazil and the
rest of the World has almost abandoned it. Snap shot of New OrkutI was very pleased to see a
makeover of Orkut a couple of days back. You didn’t notice? It is invite only
(as of now) and you might get over it in a couple of months when it is fully
functional. Have a look at the snapshot to get an idea of what it is.
It looks a lot like
Facebook. Can’t really say whether this make over will help Orkut regain it
users who have already migrated
to Facebook. Orkut needs to act fast or it might become a not so dominant
second player in India, after
Facebook of course.
P.S- Check out the
interactive Map of social networking at the bottom of the post. To keep
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The Rise & Fall Of India’s Youth Icon
Reviewed by RD Singh
on
08:17
Rating: