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December 29, 2006

Google’s Orkut Down For 13+ Hours

Michael Arrington

68 comments »

Google’s Orkut social network, which has been having a bit of a renaissance this year, has been down for the last thirteen hours as of 2 am PST. It’s unlikely this is an upgrade given the amount of time the site has been offline. This just isn’t Google’s day.

Update: Orkut is back online now, after 22 hours of down time.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 2:27 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Riaz Kanani

    December 29th, 2006 at 2:40 am

    I was online just prior to the downtime - the friends list went down first and then there were plenty of their donut error pages.. if it is an upgrade it cannot have been planned well.

  2. Sankar Anand

    December 29th, 2006 at 3:23 am

    i hope google will merge orkut with jotspot ! maybe this upgrade will be big. do you think that orkut will have the clean white interface as other google pages are.

    Maybe everyone should expect a big upgrade on this new year from orkut.. be optimistic atleast hopefully :-)

  3. Michael Arrington

    December 29th, 2006 at 3:28 am

    merge a social network with a wiki?

  4. Ahmed

    December 29th, 2006 at 3:34 am

    Orkut keeps shutting down every now and then.Then again the server is so bad.It is highly irritating when we type a long post at orkut community and get this - “Bad server”.We have to copy what we write each and eveytime before posting the message,so that we can repost the message if the server goes down.When we forget to do so and the server goes down,we are so helpless.

  5. Shankar Ganesh

    December 29th, 2006 at 3:39 am

    Most of the times when I click on a link, it used to say ‘BAD SERVER’. It’s not just down now. It’s been down since I started using it.

  6. Mike Watson

    December 29th, 2006 at 4:19 am

    Have yet to join Orkut.com, but I noticed lots of referrer hits from orkut.com to What’s Hot Today.com

    http://www.whatshottoday.com

  7. Eric Willis

    December 29th, 2006 at 4:29 am

    Mike,

    I have been here in Brasil for quite some time. Orkut goes down DAILY. It has been much better as of late in terms of service and updates, but the site is highly unreliable in terms of uptime,etc.

    However, I think EVERYONE here between the ages of 14-40 has an account. On the rare occasions I have problems with my connection and I go to an internet connection.. If there are 30 people in the internet cafe when I walk in.. 28 of the people will be on Orkut. So you just deal with the downtime because it literally is the only option. Many people prefer to send scraps on Orkut rather than send you emails…the penetration rate is high here and it is also the most trafficked site in Brasil.

  8. vyzz

    December 29th, 2006 at 4:57 am

    we were in our class today, and the first site everyone opens is orkut, and it has been for the first time, ever, that we desperately want to orkut, and we simply can’t!
    it was testimonial writing time…and there was this rumour doing the rounds that india has banned orkut, if that ever happens u can count on 1 billion people protesting ;)

  9. DarK SouL

    December 29th, 2006 at 4:57 am

    I hope they fix orkut, it has been having problems since forever.

  10. Anand

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:23 am

    Uff…Orkut sucks big time…

  11. Cobalto

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:23 am

    Just a little bug at The Matrix ;)

  12. Juan Lopez-Valcarcel

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:53 am

    Funny that Marissa Mayer’s picture is shown on the landing page for Orkut.
    I guess the only Orkut users are either in Brazil or in Google’s HQ…

  13. Kenneth D

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:56 am

    well everyone has got bad days..you see…but everyone will still be back on it..after it comes backk..coz i guss a lot of people have become addicted to it by now…even in college after it was blocked everone was doing their utmost best ot access it by means of proxys,IP’sand what not

  14. Jason

    December 29th, 2006 at 6:28 am

    Whenever a site goes down, I think to myself “I sure hope that the programmers or network people aren’t too stressed.” I just hope that no one is getting in big trouble for it.

  15. Riaz Kanani

    December 29th, 2006 at 6:30 am

    Mike: the talk about Jotspot and Orkut coming together seems to come from Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google’s enterprise division.

    Quote:

    “Girouard also indicated that Google may use the fruits of its acquisitions of Web 2.0 companies such as wiki-builder Jotspot and social-networking site Orkut to build the framework for a collaboration platform.”

    you can see the whole article here:

    http://www.internetnews.com/en.....hp/3650566

  16. Will

    December 29th, 2006 at 7:20 am

    i dont read any “merge” on the quote, Riaz.

  17. matthew

    December 29th, 2006 at 7:23 am

    just from reading these blog comments, it’s interesting how accomodating folks are if orkut goes down for 13 hours, but if digg goes down for 2, people want their heads.

  18. Sonia

    December 29th, 2006 at 7:57 am

    We want orkut back!
    I think we deserve more than an “under construction” sign…
    What’s happening, orkut administrators??????
    How long this “under construction” will last??????????
    Please, give us an answer!

    * :( *

    *

  19. Deivd

    December 29th, 2006 at 8:27 am

    I’m agree with one of the post above, I was in Brazil this year and everytime I visited a cybercafe it seemed like most of the people in there had opened a window with orkut.

  20. orkutcracj

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:01 am

    [:)][:][:]:D
    hurray! ..i can log orkut but still wid lot’s of errors…
    but to my surprise the whole fac has changed…som thing is fishy in orkut
    i think we got new orkut…
    hurray i can access but with difficulties….
    u guys still facing problem….???

  21. orkutcracj

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:03 am

    (:))

  22. orkutcracj

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:03 am

    :)

  23. orkutcracj

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:04 am

    :(

  24. Ron Diggity

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:04 am

    Wow! Techcrunch really loves Google, all posts on the homepage are Google related. I’m sure something else in the world is going on, other than Google?

  25. orkutcracj

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:05 am

    [;)]

  26. Appu Sugathan

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:21 am

    ItZ Been a while .. “orkut is under construction.” Do somethings dudes .. gOOgle gUys .. :)

  27. Jason M. Lemkin

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:30 am

    Wow, that is one heck of a renaissance. Can’t all be Brazil, can it? Mozambique or Angola, perhaps?

  28. Kanishk

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:32 am

    If this is in fact an upgrade frm Orkut, then it is really really bad timing on their part. They could have waited for atleast a couple of days. May be after the new year. Everyone wants to send their wishes to friends and they simply can’t.

  29. shishira

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:34 am

    thats what happens when you use $soft technologies to run a site of Orkuts size :(

    Happy new year everybody :)

  30. Ankit

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:44 am

    by wat time orkut will be again reconstructed…………….they should answer this

  31. Saurabh

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:45 am

    This is definitely a pretty bad time (just before new year) for orkut to go down.
    It hints of the bad effects of monopoly. And what harm does it do to google if they put an expected time it would take to be back on the orkut website. Life without orkut is so boring…

  32. roadfiend

    December 29th, 2006 at 9:50 am

    Because of earthquake in Taiwan and Philipines, the servers hosting orkut are cut off from the rest of the world. This is the insider info. Orkut is not hosted with the rest of Google.

  33. Frollo

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:01 am

    Hm orkut can be accessed from germany.
    btw When did they remove the invitation-only?

  34. madhu pillai

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:03 am

    It will be back soon .But the server is too slow.
    Lets expect a new look orkut in new years eve.

  35. Pooran

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:09 am

    Lost few last scraps of my old friend though [:(]

  36. Pooran

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:10 am

    orkut is addictive.. i just used [:(] instead of :(
    hehe

  37. Ajay Singh

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:15 am

    Thats what happens when you use cheap servers!! This is just the beginning, Google’s honeymoon phase is over.

  38. Himanshu

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:20 am

    Its back working again

    maintainance seems to be over now

  39. ocean

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:24 am

    taiwan earthquake took place 3-4 days back. that didnt affect the orkut.. probably a shutdown to test out some new features. but its back online! (yay!!).. yup lets hope to see some cool ui in the new yr!

  40. Ankit

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:30 am

    It’s back, alright. Does anything seem different?? What was the matter.. why did they take it down?

  41. Marcelo

    December 29th, 2006 at 10:50 am

    I’m here in Sao Paulo (Brasil), my Orkut wasn’t working the entire say, but now is working (since 10 minutes before)… I was very very bored, nothing to do today, almost a new year’s day… Everybody is going to travel everywhere, but, i’m home huehueueehu…

  42. ali

    December 29th, 2006 at 11:08 am

    so all that was to merge it with google talke

  43. Kanishk

    December 29th, 2006 at 11:13 am

    Hurray…Orkut is working again…..finally…..

  44. Sean

    December 29th, 2006 at 11:31 am

    Does anyone in the US even use the site?

    Roof Contractor

  45. Tom B

    December 29th, 2006 at 11:49 am

    Orkut is back up now. I recently started using Orkut and I’m surprised at the high amount of US-based users. I had thought this was mostly Brazilian and Asian. I do wish they would freshen up the user interface a little, and cut down on some of the groups spam.
    Tom

    exacqVision IP Video Surveillance Solutions

  46. Kartik Trivedi

    December 29th, 2006 at 12:13 pm

    It’s working again, but I think every thing is same, as I havent noticed any thing new. I think they have done some major server overhauling, and from now on we wont get donuts, which every orkut user hate. And….we want….
    a long list can be there. But mother of all thing is that Google should take Orkut seriously. They have biggest video library in form of youtube, and it is not integrated with orkut. Hmmm…they should really get serious after seeing all VCs spending millions on ever budding social networking sites.

  47. Tiago Serafim

    December 29th, 2006 at 12:29 pm

    I really hope they take down it forever. People here on Brazil spend too much time there, when they should spend a little bit of that time on mine websites. =P

    My Google Analytics already shows me a “inexplicable” increase in the number of unique visitors. Which are related to online games/entertainment.

    Thank you Michael for the covering.

  48. Frank Sinatra in a Time Machine

    December 29th, 2006 at 12:33 pm

    Bad idea Google. Another .COM bust?

  49. Fashion Industry Ceo

    December 29th, 2006 at 2:07 pm

    Orkut…never used it…probably never will.

  50. Manish

    December 29th, 2006 at 2:42 pm

    Finally the cracks are showing up more and more on GOOG !!!

    To be honest they have tons of ME-TOO products but besides search and map maybe none other impress me. On the contrary they suck. I cannot even sort my emails in Gmail by time.. who would design it that way? Tag as much as you want.. but dont ignore the most needed features. Buying YouTube was a clear testimony of how they lack that capability of bringing out good products. And search is product out of 7-8years of hard work. Such qualit products dont come out overnight if you just throw lot of geeks to the problem.

    Also saw that Gmail had all emails deleted for some folks.. I was always scared of the privacy issue with that. Yahoo! email is the best.

    Regarding social networking I LOVE LINKEDIN. It is neat, clean, nonintrusive and simply beautiful. I dont want to spend time on one more social site…

    They should take Orkut down like they did with GOOGLE ANSWERS…

  51. raj

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:15 pm

    i agree orkut should be shut down for good…..in orkuts case 20% of playtime did not work well as they produced something which cannot scale….social networking is not google’s core product….is Eric listening!!??

  52. pankaj

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:25 pm

    @manish.
    have you tried clicking oldest link just above the day column? You will be shown the first mail you received and then you can traverse back with newer link. I guess that is what Yahoo date sort does (look is a bit different though). But I guess people are smart enough to figure that out.
    Google has a business model based on ads and that is why they bought YouTube (to sustain their business model and they have cash too). Google Video is still a good enough product.
    Other google products are purely based on innovation and their long term goal of providing information to all. If you don’t like their products…don’t use them.
    Linkedin, as a social network is lot different than orkut. The target audience of both the sites are totally different.

    Orkut ain’t going down but it is a start of something big. Untill then, you can ignore it.

  53. David Mackey

    December 29th, 2006 at 5:45 pm

    Any news on why the site was down?

  54. mathew

    December 29th, 2006 at 7:01 pm

    Well, after reading that Orkut was “having a bit of a renaissance”, I logged in to see.

    It was just as I remembered. Almost entirely full of spam in Portuguese.

  55. rulepark

    December 30th, 2006 at 6:01 am

    I can’t even access ur site, Mike for the last couple of days. This is because I am much affected by the earth quake in Taiwan.

    So………is good to have it all back again 80%

  56. Cheap VPS Hosting

    December 30th, 2006 at 7:16 am

    Is this the first time or it has been down in the past also?

  57. Jhatak Free Web Meeting Client

    December 30th, 2006 at 9:26 am

    Orkut is one of the un-used arrows in googles ammunition. i have been really amazed at the reach of orkut…i have some friends in the asian countiries and it is surprising that almost everbobdy outhere is on orkut.. maybe later in the future google will have a strategy to get leverage out of this strong -userbase. meanwhile, since google is underplaying on the importance of orkut in its overall product mix/offering, it is probably getting lesser importance…and hence maybe we have such a large downtime for it…hopefully google realizes the importance of orkut.

  58. Sharad

    December 30th, 2006 at 8:24 pm

    Orkut / googlesheets are the most popular google products that have failed. Any more insights?

  59. J.Do

    January 1st, 2007 at 10:34 am

    and now http://docs.google.com is broken too — since I last edited a document at around 9:50 on 2007-01-01.

  60. Falcao

    January 2nd, 2007 at 10:52 am

    Forget orkut. I’m Brazilian and I use Desktoptwo. It has message boards, live chat, etc. Besides, its a small company from LatAm and the US. Better interfaces and I like to support it. Check it out at http://desktoptwo.com

  61. André

    January 2nd, 2007 at 9:45 pm

    no problem. it’s normal. Orkut became a virus to brazillian users, and I think a pause is good. Due to a lot of spam, bad users, bad communities and useless purposes, orkut is not good enough yet.

  62. munna

    February 10th, 2007 at 4:05 am

    hi to everyone

  63. naeim

    February 22nd, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    plz we need orkut. plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  64. rahul

    March 5th, 2007 at 8:20 pm

    we need it.so be quick.plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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