Orkut

 Orkut was a Google product that gained in popularity mainly in Brazil where "with 90% of page views in Orkut accessed by users in Brazil (Feigenbaum, 2014)." Orkut appeared to be famous because it encouraged ranking your friends on different levels of sexy, cool, or trustworthy you found them to be. 

The article states that, "In order for brands to be successful in Brazil, they must allow users to blog, engage through social gaming, and incorporate online video into marketing campaigns (Translate Media, 2015). Brazilians are especially responsive to brand strategies that include online video, something that was difficult through Orkut." While I don't believe this strategy is exclusive to Brazil, catch all applications are popular around the world. We just did the one about Weixin, the Chinese spyware app which was a catchall app. 

The case study is about how a multitool platform worked in Brazil and "Early users were eager to try Orkut because of Google's strong reputation. Orkut also carried a high prestige factor due to its invite-only membership list." By creating an element of exclusivity, Google helped create buzz around their platform. However as with most Google products, privacy was a concern. "In Orkut, the user privacy concerns were neglected and stagnant. The platform allowed anyone to view anyone’s profile and his contact information (if it was added by the user), unless the person was on a person’s ignore list(Singh & Shreya Singh, 2020)."

While privacy wasn't the only issue plaguing Orkut, Google continually redesigned several features leaving users confused about what worked and what didn't work. Performance issues with slow loading pages were a constant hinderance as well that contributed to the failure. 

Multitool platforms are great, when you can do more in one place in a convenient way, that's the dream. That's why old fashioned department stores went away in favor of large scale WalMart style stores where you can do a lot of things in one place. When you can combine video, audio, chat features, and make it easy to find your friends then you have a good idea going.

Feigenbaum, G. (2014) Brazil to Google: please don't close our beloved Orkut. Available at http://www.vocativ.com/tech/internet/brazil-google-please-dont-close-beloved-orkut/ (accessed February 22, 2022).

Singh, S., & Shreya SinghBio-Statistician by day writer by night. If i am not writing then find me singing tonight. (2020, June 9). 7 reasons why orkut failed. Feedough. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.feedough.com/why-did-orkut-fail/