“Did you see the scrap posted by that senior who left school last year on the community? He’s blasted the teachers and the principal!” exclaimed a classmate.
“Where, where?” I asked frantically.
“On Orkut. Haven’t you joined yet? I’ll send you a friend request,” he said.
And that’s how I was initiated into Google’s first social networking site. Back in 2005, when Orkut was slowly becoming an addiction among the youth, social networking was a novelty of which only the ‘cool’ ones were a part of.
Initially a closed community, Orkut opened membership to everyone as the group got larger. Soon it was flooded by people from all walks of life with fancy usernames, replete with special characters and quotes. Notorious for ‘wanna do fraandship’ phenomenon and the fake profiles (because for some, it just wasn’t enough to have one), it has given millions a decade of memories. “Orkut was my source of time-pass and a way to catch up with friends. I didn’t know much about privacy settings back then and used to get stupid messages from unknown people, which was really annoying!” says Anumeha Saxena, a West Bengal-based teacher.
Using correct English certainly wasn’t the top priority of those posting updates — then called ‘scraps’. Users could post photos, videos and rate their friends as trusty, cool or sexy on a scale of 1 to 5. Then there were testimonials about how awesome you were; these were supposed to be a glowing tribute, an ode of sorts. The more testimonials you had, the cooler you were considered to be. “I remember friends bugging each other for testimonials. There were some who would go to great lengths to get one. I got so many chocolates by writing them for several friends,” laughs Priyanka Sharma, a Pune-based IT professional.
Orkut was also a way to re-establish contact with long-lost friends and even relatives who lived far away. At a time when a telephone call cost Rs.2 a minute, long conversations weren’t always feasible. This was when the social networking site came to the rescue.
“Orkut had so many communities where like-minded people could come together and share their experiences. I made my first friend from the U.S. through Orkut and later had more than 100 friends from across the globe!” reminiscences Devbrat Mandal, a final year engineering student from Bhubaneswar.
“I remember reading a fan’s version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on one of the communities and wondered if it was the real deal,” says Aditya Kapoor, a Mumbai-based financial consultant.
However, as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ caught up, armed with better features and privacy options, Orkut began losing its appeal. Riddled with fake profiles, barely functional privacy controls and hate groups, the site slowly became redundant. In July 2010, Facebook overtook Orkut as the top social networking site in India. Finally, on September 30, Google downed Orkut’s shutters.
“I’ll always remember Orkut as the first site that provided us with the social networking experience. I think it was simpler and more user-friendly compared to Facebook. Also, my cousin and his wife got in touch through it, and subsequently got married. So it will always have a special significance for me,” says Delhi-based banker Rashmi Choudhury.
Orkut facts
Orkut was named after Orkut Büyükkökten, a Google employee and the site developer.
Both Orkut and Facebook were started in 2004.
In 2008, Orkut had 13 million unique visitors from India alone, nearly three times that of Facebook members that year.
Orkut's largest community is Eu amo a minha MÃE with over 39 lakh members followed by Nike and David Beckham.
Orkut was made available in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu and Marathi from 2007.
