Chennai: On Monday, a day before the shutdown of the former social media giant Orkut, regular users reminisced their days on the site.
Created by Orkut Buyyukkokten, a Turkish software engineer, Orkut.com was introduced a decade ago with the aim of connecting people with similar interests.
“Eight years back when I first heard from friends who asked me if I was on Orkut, I would misunderstand that with ‘Arcot’ and reply that I live in Chennai,” laughs 22-year-old S.M. Jaya Kumar, a B.E graduate.
“It was a funny combination of complaints, praises and conflicts which helped me to grow a lot and be assertive,” says Nihau Chandra, a Pune based software engineer who moderated a 25K member community.
According to Kiruba Shankar, Chennai- based social media expert, although Orkut and Facebook were launched in the same year 2004, Facebook lacked a lot of features and remained unknown to many but tirelessly kept on experimenting with new ideas.
“Orkut just could not reinvent itself and lost ground to other networking sites. The world of social media is highly dynamic. Unless, one continuously reinvents, there is always the possibility of new forums arriving on the horizon and making the old ones redundant,” says Navneet Mundra, a journalist who moved away in 2009 from Orkut that once was the tool of the trendy.
“Orkut will remain forever in my memory for very special reasons. They say that marriages are decided in heaven. But to me, it was decided on Orkut,” says Pavithra Hariharan, creative manager at a Chennai based ad agency who got to know her husband through Orkut.
Last minute testimonials were written and saved reminiscently with nostalgia. “We are a set of friends from different states who connected through Orkut years ago and continue our relationship via the latest networks.” says Nimisha Shirodkar, social media professional from Belgaum.
