Revisiting the Rise and Fall of Orkut

image from techcentral.ie

Orkut was Google’s first attempt at managing a social network. It was 2004, and Google joined the likes of MySpace, Friendster, and Yahoo Messenger. It was the same year Mark Zuckerberg launched the now ubiquitous Facebook. In 2004 Google had just gone public and launched Gmail. As a tech company, launching or acquiring a social network site was a good idea for brand extension.

Orkut was like most of the other sites at that time. It allowed users to establish personal profiles and join communities in search of friends, classmates, and coworkers. With Google’s reputation, it attracted students and professionals in the tech industry. It grew in popularity quickly, even outpacing Facebook at the time.

What Did Orkut Offer?

Orkut allowed people to connect like other sites, including messaging and interactions through their scrapbooks. The platform was invitation only, adding a sense of exclusivity to its users. Also unique to the site was a friend “rating” system. This allowed users to rate friends’ profiles and, in a way, compete for the highest rating. It also allowed for a “crush list” with users writing testimonials for other users. When you compare it to other sites, there aren’t many differentiators.

Why Did Orkut Do So Well in Brazil?

Image from Pixabay, by David Gambier

Brazil, home of the Amazon (jungle not company), rainforest, beaches, and bikinis, was a success for Orkut with 32.7 million users by 2011. It was postulated that Orkut was popular for several reasons. The first was well, being first. As Ries and Trout so famously wrote in their 1981 marketing classic Positioning, The Battle for Your Mind, “The easy way to get into a person’s mind is to be first.” Brazil did not have a lot of social networking alternatives. Google was well known, and the brand allowed for user trust. Another reason is that Brazilians are community oriented and would refer to online groups as tribos. Online groups would create user identity and the feeling of belonging. There is also a language factor. Orkut was easy to pronounce in Portuguese compared to other available platforms. A cultural factor was the Orkut color scheme, it matched their World Cup soccer team jersey colors. As Orkut grew in popularity in Brazil, when compared to the rest of the globe, it became a sense of national pride to be on Orkut.

Why Did Orkut Fail?

Reasons for failure fall into two categories, technological and lack of audience monitoring. Orkut was part of Google, and Google was one of the global tech giants. The site became difficult to navigate, had cumbersome updates, and was slow to upload images or videos. Did I mention this was Google?  The tech should’ve been cutting edge, user-friendly, and fast. I’m not sure how Google dropped the “tech ball” on Orkut. As users became frustrated, their concerns were unanswered. It was easy to turn to platforms that were easy to navigate, easy to share images and video, and allowed for a level of privacy. Enter Facebook, and the rest, like Orkut, is history.