Koo goes kaput: A nostalgic look back at social media giants of the past, from Orkut to Omegle

The little yellow Indian bird, which fluttered into existence in 2020 to rival the big blue bird (formerly Twitter, now X), had to be laid to rest over the weekend. We're talking about the homegrown social media platform Koo, which aimed to compete with X (previously Twitter) but has now shut down.

At its peak, Koo boasted over 2.1 million daily active users, about 10 million monthly active users, and more than 9,000 high-profile personalities from various fields were active on the app.

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Many social media apps have come and gone over the years, leaving us with fond childhood memories.

Here's a list of beloved social media apps that were at their peak back in the day but sadly had to shut down:

1. Orkut

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Before Instagram and Facebook ruled the social media world, Orkut was the go-to platform.

Even though it shut down nearly a decade ago, there's still a generation that remembers it fondly from their teenage years.

On Reddit, there's a nostalgic thread titled "Share your best memories of O.R.K.U.T." where people reminisce about features like 'background music on your page' and 'various profile themes.' One user shared, "I loved seeing who visited my profile and creating communities on Orkut. It was more fun than Facebook!"

2. Omegle

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Omegle was an online chat platform that connected users with random strangers worldwide.

After logging in, the app paired users with a ¡°Stranger¡± based on shared interests, allowing them to chat privately through text, video, or a built-in microphone.

Although the app officially shut down in 2023 after 15 years of operation, it was especially popular in India, where it consistently ranked as one of the top countries for Omegle traffic, coming in second to the United States with 9.93% of the monthly users.

3. MySpace

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MySpace was another platform that was massively popular back in the day.

Launched in 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, it was the ultimate platform for connecting with friends, sharing music, and expressing creativity through customisable profiles. Teenagers and young adults flocked to it, and by 2005, MySpace was the most visited social networking site in the world, boasting over 5 million users within its first year.

A Reddit thread titled "The good old days of MySpace" brims with nostalgia as users reminisce about their favorite features, from adding playlists to their pages to filling out and sharing massive surveys.

One user mused, "To this day, I don't understand why everybody moved to Facebook. MySpace had full bios, personal playlists, and you could customise the background color using an external site. Those were truly the golden days of social media!"

4. Vine

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Vine was an American short-form video hosting service where users could share looping video clips up to 10 seconds long. As quoted by The Guardian, one Vine user explained its appeal: "I think part of the reason we love [Vine] so much is because they feel like an inside joke that most of our generation is in on. Something that we bonded over."

5. Yahoo! Messenger

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Yahoo! Messenger (often abbreviated as Y!M) was a free, ad-supported instant messaging client and protocol from Yahoo!. Users could download and use it at no cost with a generic "Yahoo ID," which also granted access to other Yahoo! services.

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