Orkut’s 10 year Run
Many users were disappointed when Google shut down Orkut. This user was one of them. (Credit…Nandini Yadav of the Deccan Chronicle)
Orkut, a social network platform launched in 2004 by Google had quite the 10-year run. This is one network that I was not aware of until I read the case study. The fledgling site was Google’s first foray into a social network in the days before anyone knew what a “social network” was (Forbes, 2014).
(image courtesy of Times of India)
My first question was where in the world did the name “Orkut” come from. Well it was pretty straightforward as it was named after its creator Orkut Büyükkökten, a Google employee.
Orkut’s original purpose was for users to find communities through keyword search, including titles, description, and browsing through other users’ memberships.
Google put together a marketing action plan that included some of the following basics:
Goals
Googles overall goal was to grow the popularity of Orkut through users joining communities and engaging with each other.
Target Audience
Orkut was particularly popular among technology workers and students which fit into the initial target by Google.
Social Media Choice
In trying to identify what would make Orkut the choice for users, it initially was the ease of use and ability to share many things such as photos, reviews and more.
Resources
Google has plenty of resources available to execute a great action plan, but its popularity in only Brazil led to a limited reach.
Policies
Google took privacy very seriously as they identified this as a top concern of users.
Monitoring
Google used much information to keep track of such as that 77% of Brazilian social media users have a positive attitude towards online shopping; four-fifths of them use social networking sites to research products; and social media users trust recommendations from online contacts more than other sources.
Brazilian Culture and the Orkut Brand
In order for brands to be successful in Brazil, they must allow users to blog, engage through social gaming, and incorporate online video into marketing campaigns. Brazilians are especially responsive to brand strategies that include online video, something that was difficult through Orkut (Mahoney, 2017). Orkut started out targeting those technology savvy users that were looking forward to a platform that would provide an opportunity to share not just opinions but photos, multimedia and much more.
When Orkut stopped meeting the needs of the culture and audiences, they lost their consumers and were eventually replaced by other culturally appropriate cross-platform social media endeavors (Mahoney, 2017).
Falling Short and my advise
There are a multitude of reasons for Google shutting down Orkut. For a social media platform that had over 1.5 million communities at some point to fail, it can be blamed only on a flawed plan or a lack of support by Google management.
Facebook was the main reason behind Orkut failure. Though redesigned several times Orkut was not able to retain its user base. In fact the initial design of Orkut was much simpler and user friendly. Later the things became just complicated to access (Debbarma, 2016).
Facebook kept it as simple as it could for the user so Orkut’s loss was Facebook’s gain. Orkut never tried really to take up to revive itself (Debbarma, 2016).
My final words would be that we can all learn by Google mistake to ignore the importance of technology infrastructure and good practices in user experience.
References:
Debbarma, P. (2016, August 09). Case study : Reasons why Google’s Orkut failed after Facebook was launched. Retrieved August 19, 2020, from https://medium.com/@PachaelPhillip/case-study-reasons-why-googles-orkut-failed-after-facebook-was-launched-92dd8a7abf0
Other Resources:
Hi Joel, thanks for the post! I think you have a very engaging way of writing when it comes to these posts; you come across as very down-to-earth and laid-back, as opposed to overtly corporate-sounding, which is something I think is very important when it comes to effectively communicating when an audience. One recommendation would be to further explain why Orkut failed to maintain its standing against other competitors. The case study in our textbook mentioned that Orkut failed to integrate proper video sharing into its platform, which was a major falling point in its popularity, especially as its competitors freely offered it to their users. In addition, I’d recommend finding a higher-quality image in place of the second image you used. It’s very low resolution, and (at least) to me, gives off a very cheap, low-quality image to your overall post. Be sure to spell-check your post beforehand, as there are a couple noticeable spelling mistakes I found throughout the text (ex. in your last section, “advise” should be “advice”). But overall, I think you did a good job of getting the overall idea of Orkut across to readers.