SocialGoogle to Close Orkut Social Netwok

Google to Close Orkut Social Netwok

Google is closing the doors on its social media service, Orkut, to focus on more profitable areas of its business. The tech giant has given users a three-month period to export profile data.

Google has called time on its social media service Orkut, claiming that success in other areas of the business have made its existence irrelevant.

In a blog post announcing the closure, Google’s engineering director Paulo Golgher said the service would close on September 30, as the company chooses to focus on its more popular, and more profitable, business areas.

“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,” he said. “We’ll be focusing our energy and resources on making these other social platforms as amazing as possible for everyone who uses them.”

Google has given users a three-month period to export profile data using its Google Takeout service, but no more new Orkut profiles can be created.

“We are preserving an archive of all public communities, which will be available online starting 30 September 2014. If you don’t want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account,” Golgher added. “It’s been a great 10 years, and we apologize to those still actively using the service.”

Google regularly closes its services in ‘spring cleans’ of its projects and tools as it looks to ensure it does not waste too much time and resources on failed ideas.

Orkut was seen as the first attempt by Google to enter the social media market, but it failed to generate much enthusiasm, although it did prove popular in Brazil.

This article was originally published on V3.

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