Time was when you had a large desk –a messy one at that. You printed papers or had thick files that sat in huge drawers. You waded through them to find the stuff you wanted, and they cut more trees so you could do this.

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then is an empty desk a sign?

                                                                              - Albert Einstein

Think again now.  Today Many entrepreneurs’ offices comprise only of a laptop, which can be carried anywhere. Get up…. We live in the Information Technology Era. Here people don’t do their own work, computers does it for them. 

                                                                                                                                                  Image Credit: Unchartedparent.com

From a 6 foot by 2 foot table to a trendy iPad connected to the Internet (cloud, to be more specific), the office has come a long way in a journey that involves less and less paper –if only you can apply your mind to do it that way. Here’s what you need to get there:

A Good Camera: No, you don’t have to buy a cool shooting device or an expensive DSLR camera. The camera in your phone or Tablet will do, thank you. Use it now, not for “selfies” to upload on Facebook or on Pinterest nut to click a visiting card, an invoice, a bill or even and handwritten note. The new camera phones have strong picture resolution to catch most of the text details. There you have eliminated lots of paper –and more important storage that occupies real estate.

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A Document Scanner: If your camera is no up to clicking the document you want to store –let us say it is  a huge certificate or a legal document –you can use a good scanner. You can consider buying the Fujitsu Snap Scan or my favorite, the Neat Connect. These scanners have slots built in for receipts, papers and visiting cards, so that you can scan them at a go, and they can scan both sides at one time. The best part is that you can link these scan devices to the cloud. 

 A cheaper alternative is HP’s all-in-one multifunction printers that come now with a scanner and needs no separate PC link. You can simply scan to your phone or tablet –and that too wirelessly. No hassles of booting or testing the scan quality. At 7,500-INR or about $130, the HP3545Boffers a great starting point in a journey to a paperless office.

Evernote or Microsoft OneNote: Though I am a big fan of Evernote user, Microsoft is free –and it offers similar features. These electronic note apps (that you can download) can take the images you clicked or scanned. The photo can now also get comments and tags to help you sort and track them as per need. You can also create folders to make a collection of all the documents related. Since the documents are now pictures, Evernote and OneNote will also do optical character recognition for you and help you make these searchable –just like you Google something on the Internet. You can use tags such as bills, lunch receipt, or name of the person or organization associated with the document. You are, well, sorted now. Evernote and OneNote allow you to share your notes with auditors and accountants.

Cloud Storage: Parking space on the Internet can be very useful. Evernote and Microsoft OneNote will also back up your data, but since your data is now in digital format, you can always store these on Dropbox.com or Box.com, or simply your Google Drive to access them on other devices.

                                                                                                                                                                   Image Credit: Samsill.com

You are ready for a paperless office culture, but remember, there is more to this –because you have to change your behavioral pattern to make things easier in the long run. This is what we call “life-hacking” –the business of building your habits.

Try and make sure you ask for every paper you get in electronic form, be it your utility bill or a shopping mall receipt. And yes, do it for your credit card and bank statements to complete the circle. Make people follow the same habits as you do, because it will help the world conserve paper.

How new apps help you...

• You can keep scanned copies of your car registration or travel papers and take printouts for authorities right from your handset instead of unnecessarily varying sheaves of paper.

• You can do away with old fashioned business cards. You can store images of your cards that can be stored and searched easily.

• Using Evernote or Microsoft OneNote, you can convert old documents or even handwritten notes from meetings into files that use optical recognition.

If you have your own life hacks to make this article more helpful, feel free to contact me, or drop a comment.

When Kim Kardashian announced that she was creating an app for iPhones and Androids that allows players to interact with her as they work their way up to the A-list, most thought it was a joke.

But it seems that Kim is the one having the last laugh as the game has already amassed an incredible $43 million, according to parent company Glu Mobile's third-quarter earnings report.

Having taken in $1.6 million in the first five days of release alone in late June, the latest figure actually falls short of initial projections that the game would rake in as much as $200 million by the end of the year.

According to Glu Mobile, the 34-year-old's app has earned the company more than all their other apps combined. A fact that isn't all that surprising considering it has been installed just shy of a staggering 23 million times. That figure translates to approximately 5.7 billion minutes of gameplay. 

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•   Life Changing Lessons that Four years in College Taught Me
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It is new, it is fun, and it whets your appetite for glamour. You can play it anywhere –on the bus, at the dentist’s or in a queue. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, a free mobile game for Apple and Android devices, is so addictive that it makes Candy Crush look silly.

The game goes like this. You work at a downtown boutique ambitiously named SoChic. Your boss has an appointment to see an apartment and leaves early, asking you to lock up. Before leaving, you have to finish some chores. You are about to close shop when Kim Kardashian appears. Do you tell Kim the shop is closed for the day or do you go the extra mile, reenter the shop and help her choose a dress? Your decision will earn you points and money as reward and set you on the road to stardom.

Glu Mobile, a popular publisher for mobile games, developed this new app for Android and iOS handheld devices. It earned $1.6 million within the first five days of its release and is currently the fourth highest grossing app in the iTunes Store.

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You create your own celebrity avatar. You choose your eyes, nose, lips and hairstyle; buy clothes and handbags and jewellery. Players are in a story that is customized according to their sex. But the game proceeds in the same way. Kim Kardashian invites you to a photo shoot. You have to choose the clothes you wear to the shoot. Right choices means you earn rewards.

Next you earn an invitation to a celebrity dinner. Before you know it, you are tapping furiously on your phone and dipping into your bank account to buy expensive outfits and accessories. At the dinner party you frantically network to help you to catapult stardom. You may even win Kim Kardashian branded ‘K’ stars that can be used to “charm” people. You easily get carried away and use real money to buy these ‘K’ stars, which are a type of in-game currency to buy new clothes or more energy bolts.

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                       4 Easy Steps To Create passwords that even Mark Zuckerberg Cannot                              Crack

The player has to deal with catty starlets, flirt, make club appearances, and go to parties in order to work their way to the top. In addition these are acting assignments and modeling gigs. The idea is to start for E-list and become an A-lister. But all these activities require a lot of energy. These bolts of energy cost money. This is whether you decide to pay and move on or wait till your energy is replenished. If you decide to wait, a message will come from Kim Kardashian when your energy is full once again. You can leave the game anytime and resume from the same place, at least on Apple Devices.

                  Must Read: The Death of Orkut: What caused Google to Kill Orkut

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is giving Candy Crush a run for its money. Where Candy Crush was expensive if you went for in-app purchases to keep the game going, Kim Kardashian will fleece you if you are not careful. The game offers many in-app purchases which helps make t more interesting. Some of these include using real money, so beware. The company is making an estimated $700,000 a day from in-app purchases of the game.

The game is engrossing and addictive. It’s like going to a casino and gambling even though you know you will be fleeced. This is a game that makes you want to be with the right people, wear the right clothes, say the right thing and sport the right fashion. You have to be aware of the media and not get carried away by your heart.

In September 1988, American vocalist and music conductor Bobby McFerrin released the iconic song: Don’t Worry, Be Happy. The Grammy Award Winning song bore the unforgettable lines: In every life we have some trouble/ When you worry you make it Double/ Don’t worry, Be happy. The video accompanying the soothing, minimalist song had featured McFerrin, Bill Irwin and Robin Williams. Both the song and the video have remained a source of happiness.

On Monday, 11 August, Robin Williams died, leaving the world shocked and surprised. He was reportedly suffering from severe depression. The news took some time sinking in, for Robin Williams always appeared on stage and screen with a sense of indefatigability. In comic roles, he could be a riot. In more serious ones, you felt that boundless energy consciously reined in. 

Robin McLaurin Williams, was born in Chicago, Illinois, on July 21, 1951, was an American actor and comedian. Starting off as a stand-up comedian in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid 1970s, he is credited with leading its "comedy renaissance".

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Williams gave us many memorable film, His film career included such films as Popeye (1980), The World According to Garp (1982), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), The Fisher King (1991), and Good Will Hunting (1997), as well as financial successes such as Hook (1991), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Night at the Museum (2006), and Happy Feet (2006). Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995) being my favorite. He also provided voiceover in Happy Feet and helped anchor in Night at The Museum. Given his capacity for spontaneous creativity, directors often allowed him room to improvise.
 
 It was in 1998 that Robin Williams won the Academy Award after being nominated thrice earlier. He won it in the best supporting actor category for Good Will Hunting. Williams was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Good Will Hunting. He received two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.

On August 11, 2014, Williams died of an apparent suicide at his home near Tiburon, California. Either way. He wasn’t an actor you thought would go away abruptly although Wikipedia says his life featured substance abuse, periods of rehabilitation and reports of bipolar disorder.

Him and Christopher Reeve...

For anyone revisiting the life of Robin Williams, reading up details on the actor as he fades into the movie history, a heartwarming chapter would be his friendship with the late Christopher Reeve. Years ago, the two actors had trained together at New York’s Julliard School. If you go by the descriptions on the Internet, the two were very different people –One of modest height, the other 6 feet 4 inches tall; one seemingly a natural actor and a bundle of energy, the other preferring a measured, studied approach. Their first successful film roles came in years featuring the same numbers but inversely. For Reeve it was Superman in 1978 and for Williams it was Good Morning Vietnam in 1987 that likely made him a name known globally.

 In May, Christopher Reeve suffered an accident while riding a horse that left him paralyzed from neck down. Like Monday’s disclosure of “seven depression” for one of the world’s best known comedians, Superman paralyzed from neck down was as difficult to accept. Reeve’s initial phase in the hospital was the most trying. He contemplated suicide. In June 1995 he was scheduled to have surgery to reconnect his spine to his skull. The thought of it was frightening.

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As he lay nervous and afraid in ICU, the door flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and a yellow surgical gown and glasses, speaking in Russian accent. The man announced that he was a proctologist and he was going to do a rectal exam on Reeve. It was Robin Williams. Wikipedia quotes Reeve –

“For the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay”.

From Superman to ordinary people, Robin Williams made us laugh.

Mrs. Doubtfire: The movie I cannot Forget…..

Every once in a while there comes a movies that you can watch again and again, yet still revel in an enjoyment that is untainted by the passage of time. Very few jokes retain their original freshness, and only the rarest scenes keep their magic intact. Robin Williams has given us many such movies, but to me and many others Mrs. Doubtfire was the one that stood out.

I wish I could point out one particular day when I watched the film…… one momentous occasion that I could always remember. Alas, I don’t remember how old I was or where I watched it, or even with whom I watched it with. But the film crept up on me, making a silent but indelible mark that would always remain. My feelings towards the film are now a result of watching the movie multiple times over the last two decades –sometimes skipping through my favorite scenes, sometimes watching it from the begging to the end.

While many describe Mrs. Doubtfire as a children’s movie I am not ashamed to say that I can still watch it with undivided attention and enjoyment. Indeed some sequences are slightly risqué, some jokes so unapologetically adult –remember the conversation between Mrs. Doubtfire and Stu (played by Pierce Brosnan) about activities in the boudoir?

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Like so many others, I woke up on Tuesday to the fact that Robin Williams was dead. Williams who brought the role of the grey haired, no-nonsense Mrs. Doubtfire to life, found dead from apparent suicide in his Northern California home. While Flubber, Jumanji, Hook, Aladdin and Fathers’ Day were all films we grew up watching, Mrs. Doubtfire will always remain the one that will always remain with me. It’s a film with equal amount of humor and pathos, wonderful on-screen chemistry and from the heart dialogue delivery, and beneath it all, a beautiful story that pulls at the heartstrings of those old enough to appreciate the ambiguity of the ending.

Though there is no doubt that Robin Williams will be missed. While it is depressing to lose a part of your childhood, I’d like to think that he was bigger than his role as Mrs. Doubtfire, or as Aladdin’s Genie or as Patch Adams, for that matter. Robin Williams was greater than the sum of his parts, and one can only hope that wherever he is, he is brightening up the place with his funny voice and witty repartee.

May the crazy, fun-loving and heart-warming guy rest in peace and make every soul laugh its heart out in Heaven.

Rofl with Robin...

  Do you think the God gets stoned? I think so –look at the platypus!

 If you’re looking for Sarah Palin’s new book, it is a bitch to find. I found it somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, in the fantasy aisle!

    And then you realize god gave you a penis and a brain and only enough blood to run only one at a time.

    If women ran round the world we wouldn’t have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.

    Beer commercials usually show big men, doing manly things: ‘You’ve just killed a small animal. It’s time for a light beer’. Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, ‘It’s 5 ‘ clock in the morning. You’ve just pissed on a dumpster. It’s Miller time’.

    Ah, yes, divorce… from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.

    You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married say. “It’s the same sex all the time”.

Most memorable Robin Williams lines on set……

You don’t know about real loss, ‘cause that only occurs when you’ve loved someone more than you love yourself. And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much

-          Dr Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting

Gooooood Morning Vietnam! It’s 0600. What’s the O stand for? ‘Oh, my God, it’s early’

-          Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning Vietnam

Now in this class you can either call me Mr Keating, or if you’re slightly more daring, O Captain my Captain

-          John Keating in Dead Poets Society

Our job is improving the quality of life, not just delaying death

-          Patch Adams in Patch Adams

There’s three things in this world that you need… respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movements on a regular basis, and a navy blazer

-          Parry in The Fisher King

My first day as a woman and I’m already getting hot flashes!

-          Euphegenia Doubtfire in Mrs. Doubtfire

Pleas e don’t worry so much. Because in the end, none of us have very long on this Earth. Life is fleeting. And if you’re ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky when the stars are strung across the velvety night. And when a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day, make a wish and think of me. Make your life spectacular

-          Jack Powell in Jack

But oh, to be free. Not to have t go poof! What do you need, poof! What do you need, poof! What do you need? To be my own master. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in the world. But what am I talking about? Let’s get real here, that’s never gonna happen. Genie, wake up and smell the hummus

-          Genie in Aladdin

The human spirit is more powerful than any drug – and that is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. These are the things that matter. This is what we’d forgotten….the simplest things

-          Dr Malcolm Sayer in Awakenings

I love you with all my heart. With every cell, with every molecule, with every atom. I love you on a subatomic level

-          Professor Philip Brainard in Flubber

Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your live extraordinary

-          Keating in Dead Poets Society

Online safety and privacy is as important as your physical safety. There are some unethical and intelligent people, known as hackers, who could crack your passwords as easily like opening a bottle. They have some tools which enhance their powers but the most used logic of theirs is: Guessing. Yes, first they study their target and then proceed with their plans. In this post you will learn how to create perfect-unbreakable passwords.

Now day’s people don’t really try to understand the priority of online safety. Hackers can crack your online bank account and can make you broke!! Or they can get hold of your Facebook account and just disrupt your personal life.

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But people without understanding the priority choose some common used words. In a survey it has been proved that the most used words as passwords are “password” or they occupation like “chrisanalyst” and believe me the hackers can crack these. People many times use names of their relatives like wife, kids or girlfriend.

Remember: Longer passwords doesn't mean that you are safe. Unique passwords do.

What Happened With Me....Once while my brother was away I tried opening his laptop which was password-protected. I knew his girlfriend’s name, Catherine. I tried cracking the password with various combinations and finally I SUCCEEDED!! And the password was…wait for it… “catherinedarling”. 

So, in this article you will learn how to create perfect-unbreakable passwords:

First before starting make an easy-to-remember sentence like: My favorite footballers are Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham and Lionel Messi.

                  Tip: Quotes Also work

It is better if you create a sentence with about 10-12 words. For making a password and remembering it you just have to remember this sentence.

  Step 1: Then take one letter from each word, it can be the first letter, last letter or first vowel. You can even create your own combinations like the third letter etc. But I am going to choose the first letter from each word, which are: mffacrdbalm.
                                              Password: mffacrdbalm

 Step 2: Then change some lower-case letters into upper-case letters. I t will make your password more difficult to crack. It’s easier to remember if you choose some pattern for it, like the first two letters and then the fifth and sixth letter. I usually choose this method.

                                              Password: MFfaCRdbALm

Step 3: Then add some numbers in between. These too in a particular pattern and somewhat related to the words. For example: Cristiano Ronaldo wears a jersey of #7 whereas Messi wears one of #10. Adding these numbers will make the passwords more unique.

                                             Password: MFfaCR7dbALm10

 Step 4:  Add some punctuation marks or some special signs Like: @ # $ %  & *. These are just some more techniques for making invulnerable passwords. You can add these marks in the original sentence if you find it hard to remember. Again following a pattern makes it easier but yet it is difficult to guess a password like this one.

                                              Password: MFfaCR@7dbALm@10

Do you think any of your friends or relatives can crack a password like this one.

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Write the initial sentence somewhere personal so that you don’t forget it. Now this password looks difficult, you can add your own techniques to them. You can make more sentences like ‘Manchester United was the best club in the word, 11 but now it is Real Madrid. So, the password I get from this sentence is: $MUwtcithw11bnii$RM. 

 Or use a quote: "Price is what you Pay, Value is what you Get", by Warren Buffet. I can convert this quote into the password: P$iwyP#Viwy$G. See unforgettable, yet uncrackable.

                                                
See, it is so easy to make strong passwords. Passwords are an integral part of our online as well as our offline life. You should know how to make strong- uncrackable pass words. Being safe online is what is more important than being popular online.

 If you have any suggestions to improve this list please leave a comment and help save many people form being hijacked online.

MySpace was founded in 2003 by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, and was later acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580 million. From 2005 until early 2008, MySpace was the most visited social networking site in the world, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States.

 In April 2008, MySpace was overtaken by Facebook in the number of unique worldwide visitors, and was surpassed in the number of unique U.S. visitors in May 2009. MySpace generated $800 million in revenue during the 2008 fiscal year. Since then, the number of MySpace users has declined steadily in spite of several redesigns. Because after Facebook arrived, it kicked many popular social networks out of the Web garden.



A recent survey of 18-30 year olds has revealed that six percent STILL use MySpace, once the most popular social networking site in the world.

The music discovery site had 50 million users, and was relaunched by Justin Timberlake in the year 2013. Meanwhile, Bebo (where you can post blogs, photograph, music and videos), a 10-million strong website once loved by UK teens, has recently announced its own relaunch.

After years in the shadow Facebook, which now has a whopping 1.2 billion user base, is retro social networking on its way back into fashion?

 We open the antique treasure chest of the Internet, and take a look back at the sparkle-covered highs and lows of the MySpace era. 

Use all the sparkles!

Like it or not, it was seemingly impossible to spend time stalking MySpace, circa 2005, without a heavy 
dose of blinding screen glare from all those sparkly stars and love hearts. The more blinding unicorns and rainbows, the better, it seemed. And who was going to prove s wrong?

Chain mail had us genuinely worried

‘If u send this message to all ur contacts, then press F7 and your crush’s name will appear on the screen!! If you don’t you will have 7 years bad luck!’ the arrival of these chain messages in one’s hotmail inbox invariably sparked dilemma and mild panic. We couldn’t be entirely sure, though –so we sent them on anyway. 

Customize, customize, customize

Sites like MySpace and Bebo were gloriously customizable, be it glittery pink fairies or boy bands with more hair gel than a Hollister advert. Particularly memorable was my ‘I <3 BEER’ theme, which brought instant street cred –despite the fact that I’d never drunk in my life. 

The birth of over sharing: all those questionnaires

Back in the 00s, we were happy, for some reason, to share everything and anything on the Internet. Whether it was allowing people you’d never met to find out your deepest fears and dreams with ’10 truths about me’, or finding new and inventive ways to waste time with silly band names, the Internet and procrastination went hand in hand before any of us could even spell the word. 

MySpace’s ‘current mood’

For all those times when you were ‘pissed off’ or ‘moody’ and wanted everyone to know it and wonder why: because everyone liked being a little mysterious sometimes.

The internet had its own language

For anyone who grew up with the web, words that are now ridiculed then seemed the height of kl. Lol’ing at a gr8 PJ with our bffes was, like, super jks bbz. So was iNserTing RandOM caps. ROFLMAO. The English Language was played, cracked and broken but we loved it. 

The internet could be stressful

Particularly when it came to deciding on your ‘top 8’ MySpace followers, or which of your 4,000 friends would be your ‘other half’ on Bebo. 

The all-important email username

Nothing summed p existence quite like one’s email username, in an era when addresses like couch_potato118 or the_edster (joyfully, still in use) were de rigueur. Try applying for jobs with one of those. 
 
Also Read:  Death of Orkut: What caused Google to Kill Orkut?

Share the luv

On Bebo the hardest daily decision was who to ‘Share the Luv’ with. Because nothing spells insecurity like the lack of Internet luv. 

That 400-photo sleepover album

Because nothing says ‘here are two best friends having a super awesome time’ like 400 near-identical shots that commit every crime against photography ever. Particular classics included: the beard stroke, the peace sign, the bathroom mirror selfie (with or without flash), and the overhead shot. Hours spent editing the brightness, writing captions, and uploading to MySpace was time well spent.

    If you have any suggestions for this list or the blog , please feel free to drop comments.

Orkut was the first ever social-network I ever registered to. The feeling was amazing to make new friends and chat with long distance friend. It was a king among soldiers in the social-networking market. Though I haven’t used it for years, I simply love it and everybody does. Recently Google has gone on record by deciding to shut it down. Let’s Read more about Orkut and reasons why it’s shutting down:

What is Orkut?

Named after its creator Orkut Buyukkokten, it’s a social networking site that’s owned and operated by Google. The idea was to rediscover old friends, make new ones and speak up about anything and everything and anytime. The journey started on January 24, 2004 and will end on 30 September, 2014.

Was it popular?

Extremely; till 2007-08 Orkut was ruling the world then, especially Brazil and India.

 In 2008 Google announced that Orkut would be fully managed and operated in Brazil, by Google Brazil, in the city of Belo Horizonte. This was decided due to the large Brazilian user base and growth of legal issues.

Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than competitors Facebook and MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil. In fact, as of December 2009, 51.09% of Orkut's users were from Brazil, followed by India with 20.02% and United States with 17.28%.

Though FB was rolled out in 2005 (2004 in the US), it took two-three years for people to fall in love with the features FB had to offer. In fact, such was the popularity of Orkut in Brazil that only in 2012 did FB finally eclipse the Google product. The other market where Orkut worked well was India. Orkut had almost 120 million users in 2008.

But with Facebook making it so much easier to discover friends and allowing users to set their privacy level, it was just a matter of time, that the king (Orkut) had to make way for the emperor (Facebook)  leaving the throne for him.

Why was it shut down?

Politely put, Orkut got overpaced by Facebook and twitter. Though Google is known for killing many of its products, all now in the  “Google Graveyard” ;A note was sent out by Google on June 30 studiously avoiding the F-word –and by that we mean Facebook –as it read:”Over the past decade, YouTube, Blogger and Google+ have taken off, with communities springing up in every corner of the world. Because the growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut’s growth, we’ve decided to focus our energy and resources on making these social platforms as amazing as possible for everyone who uses them.” Truth be told, FB killed Orkut, and Google+ (the “successor” of Orkut) is still far behind FB.

Can I still access Orkut?

You can till September 30, 2014. All you have to do is login with your Google username and password. You can also export your posts and photos to Google+ using Google Takeout (a Google project that allows user to retain their data and download them). After Orkut shuts down, its public communities and pages will be archived and preserved. If you don’t want your name or posts to be a part of this archive, delete your Orkut account.

Is there anything that Facebook can learn from Orkut?

 

Facebook should have something like Orkut’s theme feature using which ones page looks beautiful and colorful. Facebook is the same wherever you go –blue, blue, blue. The theme feature allowed you to rate a friend’s crush-worthy quotient.

The death of Orkut tells us that…

No social network is forever, today is the FB and twitter era tomorrow will be something else. And, 2014 is not Brazil’s year. The lost their Facebook days long before they lost the World cup.

Why Orkut didn’t work out:

These are the reasons why it is being shut down:

No social-sharing plug-ins: For Buzzfeed and Cracked.com addicts like us, it makes things so much easier if there are plug-ins to help share articles, photos or videos on social media platforms. Unfortunately, Orkut doesn’t provide any.

Limited business promotion: Ads are allowed on Orkut. However, one cannot share them outside the website, which basically beats the point of having advertisements n the first place.

No privacy: The only privacy you get on Orkut is in the chat box. Everything else you post is available for the world to see. For instance, if you checked somebody’s profile the person will about it, let alone the world.

No entertainment: No in-programme apps or games available for fun.

No searchability on Google:  Orkut profiles do not come up on Google Search. One can only access a profile if he/she has an account on Orkut.

It’s based on two types of web-development languages: ASP on the front-end and Javascript, OpenSocial at the back-end. Application for such combination is not easy, unlike Facebook, which is programmed on PHP. This leads to a lagging interface and repeated messages, which read: “No cookie for you!” Aargh!

Popular products of which are now in the Google Graveyard:

Google Wave (2009-2012): A real-time messaging platform.

Google Health (2008-2012): A system where users could bring together all their health records.

Knol (2008-2012): Something on the lines of Wikipedia.

Google Reader (2005-2013): RSS reader, which kept track of content on new sites, blogs and so on.

iGoogle (2005-2013): An option to personalize one’s page.

 If you have something to add to this article please drop a comment or contact me. Lots of love and enjoy reading.