Though it was last week that Google Inc announced its long-awaited decision to shutdown Orkut, the news only sank in today when I read\u00a0the following Farewell Orkut email<\/p>\n

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Frankly speaking, I don’t care for Orkut. I haven’t even checked my account for years. It seems ages ago that I logged in Orkut just to have a look, let alone using it for sending scraps.<\/p>\n

And this world is a fast paced one. We cannot really dwell over technologies that have become redundant. We can only move forward and embrace newer networks and newer connections.<\/p>\n

Still, reading Orkut’s farewell letter left me a little uneasy.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, when Orkut ruled, it actually RULED. There was no one else like it. It was the first social networking site that gave me a high.<\/p>\n

I started using Orkut actively in 2006. A friend told me that I\u00a0can find anyone on Orkut – anyone! To check its might, I searched for a girl who was my best friend in middle school. I just knew her name and nothing else. I didn’t know her city, or the school she completed her studies from, or her college, nothing.<\/p>\n

Surprised, astonished, amazed aren’t the words. What I felt was ‘bewildered.’ Really, because I found a girl with whom I had no contact for the last 13 years. And I\u00a0found her on Orkut.<\/p>\n

That was just the beginning. I was glued and I used Orkut for a good couple of years.<\/p>\n

Those were the time when we were shy on putting up a profile pic, unlike the bold selfies that we now love taking. Our life as we portrayed on Orkut was\u00a0humbler and much closer to reality.<\/p>\n

Then Facebook rose to fame\u00a0and Orkut was forgotten. But in this world, nothing lasts forever and change is the only certainty. In Google Inc’s own words,<\/p>\n

“…people will find other online communities to spark more conversations and build even more connections for the next decade and beyond.”<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though it was last week that Google Inc announced its long-awaited decision to shutdown Orkut, the news only sank in today when I read the farewell Orkut mail from Google…Once upon a time, when Orkut ruled, it actually RULED. There was no one else like it. It was the first social networking site that gave me a high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[384,385],"yoast_head":"\n