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| Orkut shutting down! Farewell tchau Orkut. |
This
blog is dedicated to that generation of 80s and 90s who has seen the rise and
fall of pioneer in social media website – Orkut!! The social media website
which even today has remained undaunted by the encroachment of our younger
siblings, parents and relatives. A safe heaven!! Yet everything was so public.
It was our own personal space. Our own kingdom and we were its king. Ruled this
domain for over 6 years. Now rebelled by Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
All
other readers who were CHILD then, enjoy the blog. You will wish if you were born
a couple of years before. ;) And those of my generation smell the nostalgia.
Yesterday
while browsing a random thought struck my cerebellum. Reminding me of Orkut. Once
so called leader of social networking websites. And out of the blue I decided
to login to Orkut.
Space
that was usually occupied with ‘Status Update’ made me skip my heartbeat. It
was written in bold words - Orkut will
not be available after September 30, 2014
OMG!!!
This came as a jolt to me and most probably to everyone of you who have spent a
substantial amount of time of their life here. A hard blow on all the memories
associated with this about-to-dead networking website. This was once the
lifeline of our lives. Scraps, testimonials, fans, rating card to rate someone
as cool, sexy and one I cannot remember. I logged in after 4 years. Can’t blame
my memory!! Nostalgia!! And then a deep dive in the ocean of unforgettable
memories. And Orkut was named after its creator, Google employee Orkut
Buyukkokten. Thank you Google for taking the wise decision of not using his
surname instead.
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| Orkut Buyukkokten - Man behind Orkut |
Out
of curiosity, I checked the cool new features which Orkut Team indulged to
compete with Facebook and Twitter. And the most I loved was is the cool status
you can put in there. I tried putting a status, and it went as follows-
Orkut
shutting down!! May be this is the last status dedicated to all the beautiful
memories it helped me in creating in my life. CIAO Orkut. You will be missed.
P. S. I am pretty sure
no one in the world is going to read this status for sure. But yes, I am an
Orkut fan even in world of Blogger, FB and G+. 
Cheers boy! You are 10 and I am 22. I have seen you grow up and fall.
My puberty, teenage and adolescence belongs to you.
Cheers boy! You are 10 and I am 22. I have seen you grow up and fall.
My puberty, teenage and adolescence belongs to you.
You
can colour few words, put those funky emojis, add locations, add HTML links,
and use BIU features of MS Word. This is amazing!! FB, Twitter you
are still missing these.
The
account is as it is when I left it. May be after completing my Higher Secondary
School. 4 years ago! I still remember where, when and how I created my Orkut
account. I was in like 8th standard when my sisters Avantika and
Purva strained and took me to an internet cafe in Amravati. I was unaware of
this Orkut thing. We sat, created the account. My age was not legal therefore I
provide my fake date of birth. And the next moment I was chatting with them
from the same location on two different PCs. It was awesome! I just found a
treasure pot hidden in the world of WWW. There onwards, for the next 5 years
Orkut remained a platform for scrapping and testimonials. Scrap is more like
messages. You have no provision to hide them or edit afterwards. And
testimonials are the compliments that we write praising one of our friends, so
that another person, sending friend request can know a bit about him/her.
Number
of scraps were everything that was deciding how much active a person is on the
internet (and for us Internet meant ONLY ORKUT). It was more like cyber war;
who gets maximum scraps. Without any time constraint. Google has decided to
shut down Orkut now. I am glad that they never checked scrapbooks of our
friends. Watching the deterioration of English they would have brought it down
for sure a lot earlier. Maintaining the decorum of the English language was a
task.
It
was the time when cool was
coooooooooooooollllllllllllll, or kooooooolllllllll.
Simple
one syllable Hi was;
hi
hii
hiii
hiiiii
hiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii....................
The above Hi was sent by one single person
in a single non-truncated scrap (message).
Hello was like,
----\:\------
-----\:\-----
-----/::\----
/\--/:/\:\---
\:\/:/--\/---
-\::/--------
--\:\--------
---\:\-------
----\/-------
-----/\------
----/:/------
---/:/-/\----
--/:/-/:/----
-/:/-/:/-/\--
-\:\/:/-/:/--
--\::/-/:/---
---\:\/:/----
----\::/-----
-----\/------
-------------
/\-----------
\:\----------
-\:\---------
--\:\------/\
---\:\----/:/
----\:\--/:/-
-----\:\/:/--
------\::/---
-------\/----
-------------
/\-----------
\:\----------
-\:\---------
--\:\------/\
---\:\----/:/
----\:\--/:/-
-----\:\/:/--
------\::/---
-------\/----
-----/\------
----/::\-----
---/:/\:\----
--/:/--\:\---
-/:/----\:\--
-\:\----/:/--
--\:\--/:/---
---\:\/:/----
----\::/-----
-----\/------
And
teddy bear were coming in many versions, like sitting, standing, dancing,
playing;
---------/
;;;; \ ____----- .;;.
--------|;(;;;-""-------`'-.,';;;;;\
---------\;'-------------------';;);/
--------/------------------------\;'
-------/------.;.-------.;.--------\
------|------;;o;;----;;o;;------|
------
;----- '"-'`----`'-"'----- /
------/\-----------._.
---------/
-----;;;;;;_-----,_Y_,----
_.'
----/;;;;;;;\-`---.___.---
';.
---/|;;;;;;;;;.__.;;;.-------\\
--;
-\ ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;\------;\__--.;.
--|-----';;;;;;;;;;=;;;;'-------|-__;;;;/
--|-------`""`-
.------._-----/;/;;\;;/
-/
;------------/;;;;;;;-;/;;;;;;;/--|;/
-\_,\----------|;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;|-|
------'-...-----
';;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;\/
TEDDY
BEAR is the sign of FriEndsHip
OR
_,-~-.
_.--._.-~-, _______
_________/
.- ,“_______`-. \\______
_________\\
/`__________\\“/______
_________
/___“a___a`___\\ ________
_________|____,“(_)`.____
|______
_________\\___(
._|_. )___ /_________
__________\\___
.__,“___ /__________
__________.-`._______,“-.__________
_____,“__,“___`-“___`.__`._______
_______/___/____V_____\\___\\____
_____,“____/_____o______\\___`.___
___,“_____|______o_______|_____`._
__|_____,“|______o_______|`._____|
___`.__,“_.-\\_____o______/-._`.__,“__
_________/_`.____o____,“__\\_______
__.““-._,“______`._:_,“_______`.,-““.__
_/_,-._`_______)___(________“_,-.__\\
(_(___`._____,“_____`.______,“___)_)
_\\_\\____\\__,“________`.____/
I
still do not understand who in the world got so much of time to type all these
shapes and designs. My salute to that guy. Guy because, girls I expect were
busy with other guys and they lack creativity anyways. :P
Orkut
brought some drastic positive changes in our lives. It helped us to become
proactive in life. As we have to decide the next chat session in cyber cafe and
arrive on the right time to get the right PC with flash player and Gtalk
installed in it. Cyber cafe owner became a closer friend than tuition mates. Getting
10 Rs discount or extra 5 min for internet session from the owner was enough to
carry a happydent smile whole day. Thus, became socially active. English vocab
touched the upper circuit in those days. It was like breaking upper circuit in
SENSEX (or Bombay Stock Exchange); completely unexpected. Talking with a girl
even virtually was like a flight from Cloud No. 9.
But
it too had some pitfalls. The biggest nightmare was to type your crush’s name
in the status bar instead of the search box. Believe me, this was the biggest
embarrassment you can ever face. Indigestible!! No one would love to become the
butt of jokes. And you are talking about the same crushes in the PUBLIC scrapbook.
Even taking her name without any hesitation and praying God to make her come
online and know herself about the secret crush we had on her. Secret and
privacy were just words.
But
my profile was unique. It was containing a minuscule number of girls, thus I
was known as the-guy-with-guys-in-his-account. And I was answering, yeah,
that’s my profile. I have always been a decent and sober guy. Or maybe I was a
girl-repellent. :D
Many
of us might have shared the viral song ‘Emptiness’. Even though most of my
friends were unable to sing its English lyrics. All of them were walking in the
shoe of Rohan Rathore, an IITian guy who as per the rumours wrote that song for
a girl who broke his heart and killed himself. But years after it was in the
news that original composer was Gajendra Verma. Feeling pity for this guy,
Orkut era was over by then!!
Most
attractive things after a cute girl’s profile picture was the various ‘Free
Recharge’ spam links. And then after getting wooed away from these links the
tough job was to retrieve our hacked account. After years of experience finally
now we were able to distinguish between a real existing girl account and a fake
profile. This expertise helped all of us while we all shifted to Facebook.
Awfully we cannot mention it in the resume.
Things
were changing slowly. An American company Facebook was making the news. For
many people Facebook was still beyond indulgent. But intuitive mind forced many
like me to have an account on FB as well. Orkut saw the creation of new
communities; like ‘I am also on Facebook’, ’Facebook Vs Orkut’, ‘Orkut is
dead!’ and they were in ample amount.
But
things have changed a lot since I created my account. I got a badge from Orkut
on 30th Aug, 2011 for using Orkut
a staggering-whooping 5 years. I have been an Orkut user since it was mere 2-3 years
old. Privacy became a serious issue, which I personally never gave any
importance in those days. Most of us used Orkut on a Nokia handset. It was
impossible to imagine life without Orkut and Nokia then. Kodak’s role camera
was the product which prohibited us from uploading the photos the way we do now
from our digi cams. Recess, Duck Tales and Tom & Jerry were our favourites.
The IPod was yet to replace Sony Walkman. Radio still used to play Vividh
Bharati program instead of Radio City. Upgraded from BSA Champ to Razorback to
Honda Twister. Sachin was criticized for his performance in 2007 cricket world
cup. And after that he banged 93 and a century against South Africa. On 30th
June, 2007 becoming first person to score 15,000 runs. 41 ODI centuries was the
tally. Today retired from all formats with over 18,000 runs and 49 ODI
centuries. Photo of Katrina Kaif was the most common profile photo by girls.
And for guys it was John Abraham!
And
the biggest change in Orkut is, it is no more in Beta version also with a
changed logo. :)
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| Orkut login page! I always wish to have my profile photo on Login page. :P |
Those
were the days when – Happiness was having 5000 scraps in a scrapbook. Awfully I
lost my thousands of scrap and now the count stands at 4682. 2668 people have
visited my profile. 35 awkward photos that so from my Nokia 3110c mobile and 71
videos from YouTube, most of which are deleted by their owners. And 1 pending
friend request. 178 friends and joined 82 communities; and one of them is ‘I’m also on FACEBOOK ~ ‘.
What
has remained still is my love for Mumbai Indians, Sachin, Bryan Adams, Sandra
Bullock, Backstreet Boys, Rehman, Big B, Federer and Farhak Akhtar. My chat
status is still ‘INVISIBLE’. But now the offline icon is replaced with numerous
mobile icons. Just a couple of people online now! Where there used to be a long
list of online people with a green dot.
I
still listen to Kay Kay’s Yaron Dosti Badi Hi Haseen Hain, Bryan Adam’s Everything
I DO!, Jaane Kyon from Dil Chahta Hain, Enrique Why Not Me?. Still have my
Nokia 3110c even after having a Sony Xperia smartphone, on which I haven’t
browsed Orkut even once. Have BPL TV set at home. And the BSNL broadband’s
21,300 Rs bill is making me go around the BSNL office. But all those friends I
made on Orkut are now connected well on Facebook.
Orkut
is about to enjoy its grave, Nokia is no more that ‘NOKIA’. But one question
still prevails – whose hands were those shaking in every Nokia mobile?
If
someone still loves the things from more than 6 years, how come we shall forget
Orkut?!?! If someone asked me what is the difference between Orkut and today’s
social media, I would say the same difference that is between Cartoon Network
and CN. Or Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan and today’s Ramayan. A Maruti 800 and Tata
Nano. An evening stroll with parents and liking-commenting on Facebook!!
It’s
the end of an era!! I will be taking the backup of all scrapbook and testimonials
soon to show my children about the epic social website I was on. Maybe Orkut
has made me more proactive than necessary. :D
Tchau and Tata Orkut!! :)
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