14 centrespread centrespread 15 MAY 28-JUNE 03, 2017 MAY 28-JUNE 03, 2017

Friendster + LAUNCHED: June 2011 FOUNDER: Jonathan Abrams, PRESENT STATUS: Active Peter Chin Smarting from its failed attempts in LAUNCHED: March 2002 social networking through and Buzz, PRESENT STATUS: Shifted to online gaming Google decided to take head-on with in 2011 and shut down in June 2015 Google+. Integrated into , Google+ tried a Within a year of its launch, had three slightly different approach to social networking million users but soon had to contend with the Orkut than Facebook, offering users the option of cat- likes of MySpace and Facebook. It was sold to egorising their friends into "circles". But users FOUNDER: Orkut Buyukkokten a Malaysian company in 2009 LAUNCHED: January 2004 were not too kicked about it and it reportedly for $100 million. PRESENT STATUS: Shut in September 2014 has remained a mere afterthought in At the time of the sale, Friendster had Started by Buyukkokten, a Turkish engineer , despite a redesign around 75 million users in Asia. Friendster at Google, Orkut was the result of the search giant's in late 2015 turned into an online gaming platform failure to buy Friendster. Orkut, while not much of a in 2011 and was disabled four success in the US, proved big in and , its years later two key markets. But in September 2010, Facebook, which debuted two weeks after Orkut's launch, went past Orkut in terms of number of users in India, and a year later, did the same in Brazil. Orkut had 19 million users in India and 34 million in Brazil, when it lost the top spot to SixDegrees Facebook. Google fi nally shut Orkut FOUNDER: Andrew Weinreich on September 30, 2014 LAUNCHED: January 1997 PRESENT STATUS: Shut down in 2001 Among the fi rst social networking sites along Orkut is having a rebirth in India. Well, sort of. , with Classmates, SixDegrees had a user base of 3.5 million at its peak but the an app-only social media network founded in August limitations of internet connectivity meant it was an idea ahead of its 2016 by Orkut's eponymousp creator, might get was many recently Indians made time. It was sold to YouthStream available in India. The ap Media Networks for $125 million MySpace in 1999 and shut down two years later FOUNDER: Chris DeWolfe, reminiscing about the good old days before Facebook LAUNCHED: August 2003 PRESENT STATUS: Active took over, when Orkut was the default shines way a light to onconnect Orkut It may be hard to imagine how big MySpace was. In ET Magazine 2006, it beat Yahoo and Google to become the larg- with friends online. est website in the US by page views. Rupert Mur- and other social media sites which either failed to keep doch's News Corp had bought it the previous year for $580 million. Its valuation shot up to a stagger- going or did not quite:: G deliver Seetharaman on their initial promise ing $12 billion in 2007, when it had 300 million users. But it was all downhill for the site from there as Facebook closed Classmates the gap with MySpace and became FOUNDER: Randy Conrads the largest social networking site. LAUNCHED: December 2005 News Corp sold MySpace in June 2011 for FOUNDER: Ramu Yalamanchi PRESENT STATUS: Active just $35 million LAUNCHED: June 2004 Founded as a way to get in touch with PRESENT STATUS: Active your friends from school and college, Among the most popular social net- Classmates still remains just that, with working sites for a few years after its access to decades-old yearbooks from launch, Hi5 was second only to schools across the US. The website MySpace in 2007. It was sold to an- was bought by United Online in other , , in 2004 for a $100 million and in 2011 and they were both bought by 2015 was sold for a third of social discovery platform MeetMe for that price $60 million earlier this year

Source: Recode, , CBS, Tech Crunch