My Orkut Life
My orkut lifeāāāMy Gateway into the WWW:
Orkut was the first thing I got introduced to, on the Internet (Yup, I started out a bit late). Back then,Ā it was invite-only just like the Gmail of those times and the landing page used to show this āYouāre connected to x number of peopleā, something that made quite a few flock towards it.
Few years down the line, I got a broadband connection at my home. The first thing was to open an Orkut account. I started adding friends randomly, joined a heck lot of communities. By this time, there were pros in my class. I took tips from them, started scraping a lot, then came the fake accounts (:P Admit it, you would have done it/contemplated it at some point). Used a variety of scripts for scraps, profile decoration, fake friends etc. Thus went my entire 11th and a good part of my 12th standard too.
Enter Facebook:
Then the killer blow came in the form of Facebook, towards mid 12th.Ā This was the time when I felt Facebook was much simpler (It was, at that time). Thus, I slowly started moving away, and my Orkut lifeĀ went into hibernation.
Forward back by a year: I had a mild Orkut craze again, in my college first year, as my friend was an active user. I resumed using it actively.
Then again, came the slump in the form of Farmville. I started playing Farmville in Facebook and all my time went there.
The Buzz with Google Buzz:
Then came another villain in the form of Google Buzz. I donāt know about others, but my friends, my college seniors and I were all extremely active in Google Buzz. We discussed literally everything under the sun and this even brought us together. By the end of my 2nd year in college, I decided toĀ delete my Orkut account or at least start anew, as I had so many spam scraps(generators again), fake friends etc. Thus began the second chapter of myĀ Orkut life
Beginning of the End:
So, I started anew, added only a few people, joined communities selectively, and then neglected it completely. Only this time, the break-up was almost final. Because it was 3 years before I opened Orkut again, just to take a last look at it, after reading the news about its shutdown.
Orkut was a craze during my school days, but honestly speaking, Facebook and even Google Buzz eclipsed it in a lot of ways (especially the privacy, and the originality part).