Orkut: Success to Failure

Orkut is or shall we say was a social networking site that was launched by Google in 2004 and became very popular in the country of Brazil. Popular in Brazil, yes and for about 10 years. It was shutdown in 2014. But why?

A little background on Orkut. The purpose of the site was to allow users to find different communities through specific worded searches. Once others were found, users could browse through other member’s profiles. In less than 6 months, Orkut had over 50,000 communities. And by 12 months, there was well over 1,500,000 communities.

These communities consisted of users searching for fellow classmates, friends, friends of friends, workplaces, fellow employees, and simply other users with similar interests. The largest community of Orkut were workers and students working with or studying technology.

Google is obviously a well-known company, which is also what attracted users to Orkut. Being involved with Orkut was like belonging to a prestigious community due to the high level technological advances Google is notoriously known for.

So why was Orkut so successful? Well, it was user-friendly. Sophisticated. Clean and simple. Most importantly, owned by Google. This meant that Orkut had the latest and greatest capabilities. Due to the rising number of users and communities, Google needed to find ways to ensure Orkut was meeting the needs and wants of their users.

Google understood what the people in Brazil wanted with Orkut. They knew they needed to involved in order to be engaged and to remain engaged. Users of Orkut had the ability to create blogs and videos marketing campaigns. This made users feel more connected with one another through Orkut.

This integration and implementation Orkut set forth was short-lived. As users increased, Orkut began to create limitations and obstacles for their users. This created tension which led to the failure of Orkut.

In summary, Orkut failed because they stopped allowing their users the freedom they once had. They stopped involving them in their marketing plans. Naturally, users found “better” social networking platforms and Orkut was left to be shut-down and never used again.

Lesson to be learned….INVOLVE YOUR CONSUMERS.