why orkut lost to Facebook!

Why orkut lost out to facebook??

Only 2 years back, i didn't have a facebook account. But i did have an orkut account and all my friends(at least most of them) were pretty active on it.
And today,most of my friends quite like me, wont even check their orkut accounts and thats certainly not because there was a sudden realization they should be spending more time with their friends in person rather than 'scrapping' them.I have completely forgotten my orkut password! Its just that they decide write on their 'walls' instead.

Social networking quite clearly, is here to stay. I read a statistic somewhere that if facebook where a nation, it would be the second largest. Kids from primary schools to old -retired -grandpas have facebook account today.

It also now holds the credit for lending out a helping shoulder to the Egypt revolution. After all, it was all triggered by a 26 year old lady who shared a video of herself asking people to come to Tahrir square. What happened since is history.

So why did orkut loose out to facebook?? Quite clearly orkut had an early lead. The same thing happened when gmail was launched. Most of the people who had yahoo mails then switched to gmail and this was despite of the fact that gmail then really have any extra features to cause such mass migration.It was the brand effect. However in this case, brand effect was just one of the many reasons

Lets analyze some of the reasons why facebook overshot orkut in terms  user popularity.

1. Psychological factor:

Any human would want to be noticed. Thats human nature.
The only way you would be noticed in orkut is putting up your snaps. If that be removed, orkut is just about saying hello to your friends.
Facebook on the other hand presents you with ample of opportunities to be noticed. You write on your wall, which is liked or commented upon. The comments and like tempts similar people to do the same. And we being humans, its always nice to be noticed.

2. Games:

I joined facebook just to play Mafia wars. It was the same with lot of my friends. Like with anything monotonous, i gradually lost interest and so did most of my friends, but now i had a facebook account and as such i started logging in once in while, untill i became a daily user.
The whole point is that though you wouldn't have the same interest in those online games after a while, it serves its job of bringing more users. And once they join, the other features of facebook ensures that they stay.

3. Better brand:

I am not aware of a single celebrity who has a orkut account. On the other hand, there were many tv anchors, actors both big and small had facebook accounts. And as such, it has come to define a class in itself. Today  its  fashionable to say 'i am not on orkut, but am there on facebook'.  And who would mind if you get a better brand for without having to pay anything.


4. Better product:

Facebook is a far more quality product than orkut is. Many of the users who aren't active commentators on facebook just login to see the videos shared by other users. And once you share a video, it appears as news-feed so you don't have to each of your friend's wall to see what they have done. And that's just one of the feature. Facebook has got plenty of them and  that is perhaps the most important reason why its way ahead of orkut today. You can have all the above mentioned things in your favor, yet if you don't have genuinely good product, it will eventually not sell.

5. Regular Upgrades

Even the mightiest fort wouldn't survive if they don't adopt to changing trends and keep itself repairing. Not that Orkut didn't do, it was just that facebook was far better foresighted than them. They kept fixing their privacy issues, bought better games, better interface and they still continue to do it at a faster pace than their counterparts.


The above mentioned factors would pretty easily be the reason for any company's success over its counterpart. Kodak lost out to its peers because they were able to foresee the changes in the field of photography. Not just they didn't foresee, they refused to accept the changes even as its peers were busy spending millions of dollars on the new technology.

I read somewhere, that there is a lot of room at the top, yet no place to sit down. Orkut sat down for a moment and it lost out.

proziumtalks: Tough love for Aam aadmi and agricultire!

proziumtalks: Tough love for Aam aadmi and agricultire!: "In 2010-11, Rs 5.02 lakh crore was provided by way of tax exemptions to industry. This is nothing but a subsidy for the rich. Tracking bu..."

Tough love for Aam aadmi and agricultire!

In 2010-11, Rs 5.02 lakh crore was provided by way of tax exemptions to industry. This is nothing but a subsidy for the rich.

Tracking budgets is not easy. While the finer points in any budget get drowned in the chorus that rises to appreciate the finance minister only when more sops are doled out to industry in the name of strengthening economic growth, I have begun to realise that a budget for the ‘aam aadmi’ comes only when elections are around the corner.

You can accuse me of being anti-growth, but the fact remains that unless the government pumps in money to pull out the poor from the clutches of poverty, following the indirect route to sink in money to industry, hoping some of it will trickle down to the poor, remains a faulty assumption. I have always said that if the government launches a direct assault on poverty, the GDP grows.

Well, it has taken several years for the government to realise that farmers need short-term crop loans at a lower rate of interest. The National Farmer Commission had made this recommendation four years back. Pranab Mukherjee has lowered the effective interest rate for farmers who pay back in time to 4 per cent. In addition, the total quantum of agricultural credit has been enhanced by Rs 1 lakh crore, from Rs 3.75 lakh crore in 2010-11 to Rs 4.75 lakh crore in 2011-02. It is time however to differentiate between what the farmers receive and what the agribusiness industry gets in the name of farmers.

With five states going for elections, Mukherjee has reasons to remember the ‘aam aadmi’. Although economists call such concessions ‘populist’ measures, I think these concessions for the poor and marginalised are in reality true economic measures that spur growth. A special relief package of Rs 3,000 crore to the debt-ridden weavers, for instance, has come about only because the UP elections are around the corner. Rahul Gandhi had led a team of weavers from UP to meet Manmohan Singh a week before the presentation of the budget. Whatever the reason, weavers are in crisis and the debt-waiver will benefit 3 lakh weavers working with 15,000 handloom cooperative societies.

A few months back, health minister Gulam Nabi Azad was gheraoed by angry ASHA workers when he visited Jaipur. They were protesting against the paltry wages — Rs 950 per month — they were getting for delivering basic health services and awareness to rural population. These low wages have been in continuation for several years now, and no one took care. I am not sure whether these workers also come in the category of aangadwadi workers. But thanks to the coming elections, the finance minister has doubled the monthly salary of aangadwadi workers who too get Rs 1500 per month, a move that will directly benefit 22 lakh ‘aanganwadi’ workers. There is a need to still raise their salaries. He has also extended the benefit of health insurance that was given to NREGA workers last year, to unorganised labour in several areas.

Integrated development

At the same time, Mukherjee has provided Rs 30 crore for integrated development in each of the tribal districts in the naxalite-affected areas. This is a delayed recognition of the exclusion that almost all budgets have maintained all these years. With a little more vision, he could have launched several sustainable agricultural, health and education initiatives in the red corridor to revitalise the rural economy. If only he knew that agriculture is the first line of defence against Maoism, I am sure he would have thought on those lines.

In the name of inclusive growth, it is only industry and trade that have always walked away with the cake. In many ways the budget is simply an annual ‘maalamal’ exercise for the rich and the business community. Take the tax concessions that are doled out to industry every year and clubbed in the category of ‘revenue foregone’. In 2010-11, the finance minister provided Rs 5.02 lakh crore by way of tax exemptions to industry. This is nothing but a subsidy for the rich. Since 2005-06, the total subsidy being showered on the industry and business sector amounts to a whopping Rs 16.45 lakh crore.

In Budget 2011, Mukherjee has cleverly hidden the annual subsidy dole given to industry, but has in addition to Rs 5.02 lakh crore given last year provided another Rs 1,38,921 crore as corporate and personal tax exemptions this year. Since the economic stimulus that was being given to the industry for tiding over the recession has still not been withdrawn, we can safely compute the total subsidy to the industry at over Rs 6.4 lakh crore. Considering that the annual budget is an exercise involving Rs 12 crore, the massive subsidisation of business and industry has never been questioned.

On the other hand, subsidy on fertilisers, food and fuel has been reduced by Rs 20,000 crore this year, over the revised estimates of last year. This is exactly what Noam Chomsky meant when he said we live in times of ‘tough love’ — love for the rich and tough for the poor.

The finance minister could have easily made a drastic cut in the ‘revenue foregone’ category and thereby made more resources available for making cheaper food and fuel available to the masses, for rebuilding the shattered economy of the naxalite-affected regions, and also for programmes he spelled out for promoting millet cultivation, fodder development, and for sustainable agriculture. These are excellent initiatives, but the budgetary allocation is too low to make any significant impact. More so in case of fodder cultivation, which has remained neglected through the period when a lot of emphasis was given on increasing milk production.

Deccan Herald, Mar 3 2011.http://www.deccanherald.com/content/142494/times-tough-love.html