Google Killing Off Vintage Social Network Orkut

If on the very rare chance you're still using Google's 10-year-old social network Orkut, now would be a good time to migrate over to a more modern platform like Google+. That's because Google on Monday announced that it is shutting down the vintage site on Sept. 30.

'Over the past decade, YouTube, Blogger, and Google+ have taken off, with communities springing up in every corner of the world,' Google Engineering Director Paulo Golgher wrote in a post on the Orkut blog. 'Because the growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut's growth, we've decided to bid Orkut farewell (or, tchau). We'll be focusing our energy and resources on making these other social platforms as amazing as possible for everyone who uses them.'

Launched in early 2004, Orkut was built as a '20 percent' project and represented Google's foray into social networking. At this point, the majority of Orkut users are from Brazil, India, and Japan, and the service is hosted in Google's Brazilian facilities.

Beginning today, it will no longer be possible to create a new Orkut account. Current Orkut users will be able to log in, play games, and use their account like normal until Sept. 30. You have until September 2016 to export your profile data, community posts, and photos using Google Takeout.

'Orkut, the service, may be going away, but all of those incredible communities Orkut users have created will live on,' Golgher wrote.

Google will be preserving an archive of all public communities, which will be available online starting on Sept. 30. If you don't want your posts or name to be included in the archive, you'll need to permanently remove Orkut from your Google account. Head over to Google's Help Center for details.

'It's been a great 10 years, and we apologize to those still actively using the service,' Golgher wrote. 'We hope people will find other online communities to spark more conversations and build even more connections for the next decade and beyond.'