Those in their late 20s, including me, must have fond memories of Orkut, once the most popular social networking website. While the young gen does Liking and Commenting on Facebook, back in early 2000s – in our time – terms such as Scraps and Testimonials were pretty cool. I will not make the blasphemous statement that Orkut was a better social network, but it definitely made the concept of social networking popular, especially in India. Well, that was almost a decade ago. Orkut is shutting down, and September 30 is its last day.
If you want to save your content from Orkut, here's how you can do it:
One of the options is to download a zip file of your Orkut content. Visit Google Takeout page, where you would see Orkut already checked. Google will provide photos in their original upload format, while you Orkut profile will be provided as a set of HTML files. After having clicked Next button, you are directed to download page, where you have the liberty to choose the file download type – .zip or .tgz. Archives larger than 2GB will be split into multiple .zip files. After Google is done with creating your archive, it sends you a link so you can download it to your personal device. You will have one week to retrieve your archive.
Another option is to merge your Orkut photos to the linked Google+ profile. Visit Orkut's album export page, select albums you want to export. You can simply choose "Select all". Google then transfers your photos to Google+.
You may have moved on from Orkut, and there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't have. But, I am sure you have enjoyed looking back at your old pictures and scraps. Please share what features you liked/hated on Orkut. Should Google have revamped Orkut rather pushing the Google+? Will you switch from Facebook to some other social networking site?
That said, Orkut isn't the only social networking site that failed in the past. MySpace and Friendster are some notable ones. Also read: Orkut: 5 other major social networks that failed