Google to Shut Down ‘Orkut’ on September 30

Google is going to shut down India’s first most popular social networking site ‘Orkut’ on September 30, 2014.

According to a blogpost by the official Orkut blog, “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 (or, tchau). We’ll be focusing our energy and resources on making these other social platforms as amazing as possible for everyone who uses them.”

Orkut was launched in 2004, the same year on which the Facebook was launched. It was named for its creator Orkut Büyükkökten. Orkut found success in countries like India and Brazil. The reason behind closing the Orkut is to focus more on other services like YouTube, Blogger and Google Plus.

From today, it is no longer possible to create a new account on Orkut and in coming September 30, current Orkut users will no longer be able to log in or export photos to Google+. Until then, you can:
1. Log in and use your Orkut account as normal
2. Export your photo albums to Google+
3. Save your Orkut profile, scraps, testimonials, & community posts to your computer using Google Takeout (Until September 2016)

According to blogpost – “We will shut down Orkut on September 30, 2014. Until then, there will be no impact on current Orkut users, to give the community time to manage the transition. People can export their profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout (available until September 2016). Starting today, it will not be possible to create a new Orkut account.”

To delete all your posts from Orkut you need to:

1. Login to your Google account and then click Data tools.
2. Next to “Account management”, click Delete products.
3. Now click Remove Orkut permanently. In few days all your Orkut information will be deleted.