Google is shutting down Orkut, its first social network that was created by Orkut Büyükkökten in his 20% time, the company has announced on its official blog. The service will be shut down on September 30, 2014 and you can export your Orkut profile data, community posts and photos via Google Takeout. The takeout option will be around till September 2016. There is also an option to export all your Orkut photos to Google Plus. The company is also preserving an archive of all public communities on Orkut that will be available online after the service is shut down. If you don't want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account. Visit Orkut Help Center for more details. Launched in 2004, Orkut was among the most visited website in Brazil and India for a while. It's demise in India started around 2008, when more people started shifting to Facebook due to its privacy features (oh the irony!) The demise of Orkut has happened in slow motion, over half a decade. The tipping point came when Facebook started tying up with Indian companies. At that point Facebook was claiming it had 3.2 million active users in India. while Orkut was claiming to have 13 million users here. By the time Google started pointing out the importance of setting up a presence on Orkut to companies, it made more sense for them to concentrate on Facebook, Twitter and Google's video network YouTube. In 2011, Orkut got a…
