After 10 years of sparking conversations and forging connections, Google has decided it’s time for it to start saying goodbye to Orkut.

Orkut launched the Internet social networking pattern in the world in 2004, named after its creator – Google employee Orkut Buyukkokten.

Once one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil, Orkut of late had become so irrelevant that Google was forced to launch Google+ to take on Facebook.

Accordingly, Google concentrated more on YouTube, Blogger and Google+, with communities springing up in every corner of the world.

Because the growth of these communities outpaced Orkut’s growth, it’s owner Google decided to focus its energy and resources on making its other social platforms as amazing as possible for everyone who uses them.

Google has said it is shutting down Orkut on September 30, 2014. Until then, there will be no impact on you, so you may have time to manage the transition.

You can export your profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout (available until September 2016).

Google is preserving an archive of all public communities, which will be available online starting September 30, 2014.

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.

Has it not been a great 10 years for Orkut? How soon will you start saying, ‘Once upon a time, there was a service called Orkut!’

Ten years ago, Orkut was Google’s first foray into social networking. Orkut communities started conversations, and forged connections, that had never existed before. Orkut helped shape life online before people really knew what “social networking” was.

Now it’s time for people to find other online communities to spark more conversations and build even more connections for the next decade and beyond.

Come September 30 and the impressive testimonials, see-all scraps, millions of communities, colourful themes will cease to exist.

But true to its mission, Orkut has succeeded in making friends and family closer to each other.