Orkut and Facebook has been a favourite topic for most of us here. Who’s winning? Who WILL win? What’s the future of social networking in India? Recently, there was a huge furore over Facebook promoting itself in India by urging people to add their Orkut Friends. Then Orkut blocked their nifty little tool, so on and so forth. Look at any mention of Orkut news that we’ve covered, you’ll find subtle or obvious comparisons with facebook. With Facebook dominating almost EVERY other country, India and Brazil were Orkut’s last bastion.
And that has now crumbled.
As of today, Facebook is India’s fourth most popular site. Orkut.co.in lags at Number 5.
What does that mean? Are more Indians now on Facebook? The last stats showed that Orkut had a huge majority when it came to volume? Now, to the extent that my knowledge of Alexa’s system goes, it records not the number of visitors registered on a site, but it checks the frequency of visits, number of unique visits and number of pageviews per visit.
Now, in figures, Orkut still leads. Here’s a somewhat recent article from TechCrunch on how Facebook’s Diabolic Plan to Dominate India might just be working. The stats (as quoted) from the article:
“In August, Orkut’s unique visitors in India dipped by 800,000 within a month, from 16 million visitors in July to 15.2 million visitors in August. On the other hand, Facebook grew its unique visitors in India by 700,000, from 7.5 million visitors in July to 8.2 million visitors in August. This the largest drop in unique visitors Orkut has seen in India over the past year, while Facebook has been steadily growing each month. In fact, Facebook’s audience in India is up 228 percent from a year ago, compared to a 35 percent annual gain for Orkut.”
The reasons : The controversial Friend Export Tool. Another? Facebook Lite. Though a lot of users have complained via WATBlog Comments on how much they hate it, there’s no denying that it possibly has had an impact. Especially since it’s easy and fast to load.
So, Orkut has MORE people on it, but very little stickiness. People are way more frequent on Facebook. From a social media marketing perspective, Facebook then CLEARLY has a lead, since it’s users return more often and actually spend more time on the site.
Yesterday, Orkut, on its blog announced its commendable review of OrkutHeroes, a site which is not theirs, but merely offers excellent resources on Orkut. Why? To quote Swati Rai, Consumer Operations, Orkut (India? Presumably), it can sometimes be tough to stay on top of everything that’s happening on orkut. Being a once-active Orkut user, I did browse the site.
Decently interesting. However, it seems too promotional for my taste. It features interviews and articles on other Orkut Users, all Indian (predominantly). So is Orkut now only a Brazilian and Indian thing?
We found out that Orkut might also be launching Status Updates, which led us remarking on Orkut aping Facebook aping Twitter. Check that here.
Orkut’s last hope is Brazil. In Brazil, Orkut reign at No. 2, while Facebook lags at a meagre 22. Will Facebook steal that away too?
I totally agree with you, i was amazed to know that 20000+ Indians actively played farmville last week, definitely FB is the current mantra in the minds of Indians.
Do keep in mind that, Alexa results reflect only those viewers who have the alexa toolbar installed on their browser. Webmasters usually use alexa toolbar and facebook attracts webmasters/ app developers more than orkut.
Agreed pranav – Though I must add that the activity in orkut groups is down and we know this first hand as we have tried engaging in several groups. All in all the metro audience has already made the shift and who remain on orkut are the non metro media consuming audience that dont create content that much
It seems that Orkut has reclaimed its position. http://twitpic.com/mc3qv
you should have considered Orkut.com as well which is in Top 100 Alexa rank for India. A lot of Indians still use Orkut.com and not Orkut.co.in.
The combined traffic of both the domains would be far ahead of Facebook.
Though FB is gaining good traction.
Hey naman – All Indian Ip’s automatically direct to orkut.co.in unless a user actually chooses to go to orkut.com – But ur right adding orkut.com would make a difference. Thanks for ur comment.
hi..i am also totally agreed with these that face book coming op from orkut.
ya m totally agree facebook is overtaking orkut in india …nd orkut people launching new application as facebook but it won’t make any difference yet ..as amitesh said 20000+ indian user are active on farville (facebook game)..nd lots of application increase the popularity of site and people are switching from orkut to facebook..
most of indians working in gulf countries not able to open orkut, facebook is acceseble in gulf.
http://www.vizisense.com/compare/facebook.com+orkut.com+orkut.co.in
check this out. please add the number’s for orkut.com and .co.in. a few things would be clear. But totally agreed on the point that FB is growing by leaps and bounds.
Hey Rajiv,
May I know total number of facebook users in India.