Google to shut down Orkut in September

 

Google will close down its social-networking service, Orkut, which was started ten years ago.

Orkut is mainly used in Brazil and India, it will be shutdown on Sept. 30. Google said that they will focus on its other social networking initiatives.

The company refused to tell the number of users Orkut has.

Google in a post on the Orkut blog on Monday said,”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.”

Orkut and Facebook was launched in 2004 , now the Facebook is  world’s No.1 social networking site with 1.28 billion users.

The social network’s shutdown proposal is in question. The head of Google’s social networking services Vic Gundotra left the company in April.

Vic Gundotra managed the launch of Google+ in 2011 and he said in October that 300 million users visit the Google+ web page every month.

Google has always tried to position Google+ as a social network site competing with Facebook. For example, Last year Google started requiring users of its YouTube site to sign in with their Google+ identity before posting comments.

The company told it will keep an archive of all Orkut “communities” which will be available from Sept. 30.

Those you do not want their posts or name to be included in the community archive can remove Orkut permanently from their Google account.