Why Orkut Failed !!!?

There was a time, when we used to like Orkuting. I remembered, when our seniors restrict ourselves from using ORKUT in Computer Labs, but it was like an addiction or something for few of us and for the same we were chewed up many times. But if you ask, truly speaking, I hardly click on orkut link now days. I don’t know why it happened but there are reasons which don’t pull in anymore. When I started quantify my thoughts, figured few reasons; and when I got in depth, found something more interesting which I would like to share with you people

1. Technical reason

Orkut is based on two types of web development language, ASP for front-end and Javascript and Open Social at backhand. Application for such type of combination is not easier. Facebook has a complete design of PHP, the simplest web language after HTML and therefore thousands of applications are there for fun. Orkut seems a bit heavy, heavy in the sense that links took more time to open and in worse “bad bad server, No donut for you”. While other Social Networking Sites (SNS) are relatively fast. It’s not only my opinion. Even Marissa Mayer, vice president of consumer products at Google, in an interview told that:

“I think the social networking is really interesting. And I have to say, we launched a social network at Google called Orkut. It’s not very popular in the United States, really popular in a couple of other countries. In fact, if you go to those countries, they often think that Orkut owns Google. And you talk to people in Brazil, they’re like, oh, Google, you mean the subsidiary of Orkut?”

“But in Brazil, they were sort of used to the latency. So the fact that the site was slow didn’t slow them down. They just kept building momentum. And India, I think because it was on the Indian opposite time zone, it also wasn’t competing for that same resource of scalability.”

Click Here to see The Interview

2. Ease of Sharing
Orkut doesn’t provide social sharing plugins/ modules while other SNS do. These plugins offer easy and quick sharing. Anyone can embed these codes to their site with almost no knowledge of hard coding. The Gadgets like Wibiya doesn’t provide Orkut in there list. So one who needs to share something should have Orkut opened in other tab.

3. Search
Orkut profiles don’t show up without login. In other words while searching for a person name, search engine doesn’t provide profile pages of people related with the name on their results. May be this is because of security but there are other ways like protected view instead of hiding complete information.

4. Promotion
Orkut does not provide page creation for a business promoter. There is a feature for creating ads on orkut but link to that ad is not available publicly. Thereby losing hope for promoters to enjoy this Application. Most of the people join certain communities but the updates of community are not available on the homepage.

5. Few results from Alexa.com
I have chosen Facebook, Twiiter and Myspace for Comparison with Orkut

Bounce Rate (in %)

Daily Traffic Trend

Search Visits (in %)

Time on Site (in Minutes)

6. Entertainment
One reason instead of communication is fun on social networking sites. Orkut has little application for entertainment. There should be something for amusing which holds users on site.

7. Launch Timing
There was almost no gap when it was launched as compared to Facebook. Orkut was launched on January 24, 2004 while Facebook was launched on February 2004. But Orkut is still in beta phase (the word beta means “end user testing phase, a Software engineering term”). Meaning is that, orkut doesn’t gather the expected feedback from users and so is testing since last 7 years or may be employees are not focused for further improvement to finalize it.

One reason may be that, for GOOGLE, Orkut is an Application just like others (Gmail, Google Earth etc.) but on the other hand Facebook, Twitter (and other SNS) are Companies, fully devoted to Social Networking.

8. Buzz Integration with Gmail
By integrating BUZZ feature with Gmail, Google itself blocked people for micro-blogging on Orkut; well Buzz has resolved issue of micro-blogging and direct sharing but still not sufficient to call a SNS. It may be possible that in future Buzz will be integrated with Orkut but by that time Other SNS’s will capture the market so tightly to crush ORKUT again.

Well most of you might still like ORKUT too much. I may be wrong at certain point but not you all are. So let me know whats your opinion about Orkut and its future.