Orkut is being relaunced as Hello, but that does not take anything away from their beginning as Google’s first social platform.
Orkut’s community structure allowed users to affiliate with others who have similar interests and activity. For Brazil, this is especially important because of the “high affinity for digital and social media, where cellphone outnumber people.” (Mahoney & Tang 2016) Users are able to communicate and share the Orkut digital platform. Since outdoor advertising is banned in Brazil Orkut was especially useful in facilitating online collaboration, shopping and communication.
Orkut’s popularity and adoption appear to be in response to consumers need to communicate with like minded individuals, in the form of groups and use a digital platform to:
- Share stories
- Lifestyle interests
- Reviews and ratings
- Game experiences
- Photos
- Shopping
Orkut did “put privacy concerns of users first and foremost.” (Mahoney & Tang, 2016) This added to Orkut’s trustworthy reputation in addition to their use of invitation only membership lists. In this users were able to build top level communities. In 2012, Orkut had 30 million users (Mahoney & Tang, 2016) and was a leader in the social media market.
Although Orkut is similar to Facebook, it reminds me of Twitter. Orkut fell short in listening to what users wanted in that time and was not able to continue to move forward with changing digital landscape. As part of the companies marketing appeal and remain competitive in Brazil, “they must allow user to blog, engage through social gaming, and incorporate video into marketing campaigns.” ( Mahoney & Tang, 2016). In the end it does not appear that Orkut did a great job of meeting these consumer needs. “Google even established an office in Belo Horizonte, Brazil to manage Orkut’s presence in the region. (Horst, 2014), but ultimately was not able to compete with their number one competitor, Facebook.
Horst, Heather A. “Free, Social, and Inclusive: Appropriation and Resistance of New Media Technologies in Brazil.” International Journal of Communications 5 (2011): 437-62. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Mahoney, L. Meghan, and Tang Tang. Strategic Social Media from Marketing to Social Change. Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
