环球英语20160910 Orkut: From Success to Failure
Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Robin Basselin.
Voice 2
And I’m Ryan Geertsma. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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On September 30th, 2014, the social media company Orkut closed. At one time, it was the most popular social media website in Brazil and India. But things in the social media world change quickly. Many social media websites never become popular. Others become very popular, but then unexpectedly fail. Now, Facebook is the world’s most popular social media website. But will it always be? Today's Spotlight is on the success and failure of social media companies.
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People are using social media more than ever. In fact, studies show that about 1 in every 4 people around the world use social media! However, not everyone uses the same social media products. In Russia, many people use VK. In China, Renren is popular. Different social media websites provide different services and appeal to different people.
Voice 1
For many years, Orkut was very successful. The internet company Google started Orkut in 2004. By 2008, it was the most popular social media website in both India and Brazil. Google even moved Orkut's main international offices to Brazil. Jose Calazans is a business expert from São Paulo, Brazil. He told CNN,
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"Until Orkut arrived in 2004, internet use in Brazil was not growing. When people here started buying computers and going to internet cafes, it was only to use Orkut."
Voice 2
By 2011, Brazil had the 5th largest population of social media users in the world. And Orkut was the main social media website they used. Facebook recognized that Brazil was an important country for social media. It wanted Brazilians to use Facebook.
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Facebook had some advantages that Orkut did not. It had more international users. So Brazilians could connect with more people around the world. Facebook also offered many different app programs to play games, to organize friends and to share ideas. Orkut did not have app programs. Facebook even created an app to help people change from Orkut to Facebook. This program helped people connect with their Orkut friends on Facebook. It helped users leave Orkut and begin using Facebook more quickly.
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In 2011, the number of people using Facebook in Brazil increased by 192%. By 2012, more people in Brazil were using Facebook than Orkut. And by 2014, Google decided it could no longer compete with Facebook. And it announced that it was going to close Orkut completely.
Voice 1
Now, Facebook is the most popular social media website in the world. Like Orkut, Facebook started in 2004. And like Orkut, Facebook enjoyed much success. By 2012, one billion people were on Facebook. And now, more than one out of every seven people in the world uses Facebook!
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However, many people believe that Facebook will not remain the most popular social media website for much longer. The business website, ‘The Marketing Bit’, reports that the average age of major internet companies is 11 years. Like Orkut, internet companies often become very popular. They are very successful over a short period of time. Then suddenly, they lose popularity and close. This can happen very quickly in the world of the internet. David Karp is a social media businessman. On the Charlie Rose television show, he said:
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"One of the surprising things about social media communities is how quickly they can grow. They can explode overnight. Suddenly, you have new app programs - these things that are connecting tens of millions of people. At the same time, once a few of your friends start to leave, the whole community can fall apart."
Voice 1
Some experts compare this kind of social media activity to the spread of disease. Researchers suggest that social media acts like a virus. Viruses are spread through human contact. In the same way, social media spreads as more and more people connect on the Internet. Like a disease, it can infect large amounts of people in short amounts of time. However, once the disease loses power, people recover. When people lose interest in a particular kind of social media, they stop using it.
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In 2014, researchers at Princeton University used a disease model to study Facebook. Using this model, they proposed that 80% of people using Facebook would stop by 2017. Their research suggested that Facebook, like Orkut, would finally fail.
Voice 1
Other experts believe that Facebook is too big to fail. Social media is about connecting with people. So it works best when people are all together. Facebook is already the social media choice of more than a billion people. So many experts believe this will keep Facebook successful. Facebook is also making a lot of money. This gives it power. It can buy other companies that are competing with it. It can also spend a lot of money to continually make it better.
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Other experts disagree. They believe that Facebook's size is the very thing that could make it fail. Eric Jackson is a business expert. He writes for money magazines and advises companies that invest in social media companies. In 2012, Jackson wrote a story for Forbes magazine. Like the Princeton researchers, he also claimed that Facebook would fail by 2017. He believes that the next generation of social media will be purely mobile. It will be designed particularly for mobile telephones. Facebook was first designed to be used on computers. And Jackson believes that Facebook is too big to change. He wrote,
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"Being the king means that you are big. And being big makes it hard to change quickly when new things happen in the market that threaten your leadership position."
Voice 1
Right now, Facebook is the world's number one social media website. But can it stay that way? Or will it fail, like so many others? Tell us what you think. You can leave a comment on our website. Or email us atradio@radioenglish.net. You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook.com/spotlightradio.
Voice 2
The writer of this program was Jen Hawkins. The producer was Mark Drenth. The voices you heard were from United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again, and read it, on the internet at www.radioenglish.net. This program is called, ‘Orkut: From Success to Failure.’
Voice 1
We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.
Question:
What social media sites do you use? What would you do if one of these sites closed?
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