Google shuts down Orkut
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After 10 years, Google has shut down its first social networking site Orkut.In a blogpost, Google 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 (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 will be shut at the end of September and until then there will be no impact on current Orkut users. Orkut users can export their profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout. However, Orkut will no longer allow new users to create account.This is not the first time the internet giant has struggled when it comes to social. In 2011, Google also shutdown its social networkingGoogle Buzz site to focus on Google+ and Code Search. Meanwhile, in April this year, Vic Gundotra, the man behind Google + also left the company after almost eight years.Earlier this year in an interview with Bloomberg this year, executive chairman Google’s Eric Schmidt said missing the rise of social media was the biggest mistake he made at the world’s largest search-engine operator.“In our defense, we were busy working on many other things but we should have been in that area and I take responsibility for that,” he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
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