Last year, there was a rumor that Google has eventually bought Facebook. This was definitely a big news for the Silicon valley. I don’t know if this deal made people happy or sad, but at first, I was very reluctant to accept the truthfulness of this piece of news. Later, it turned out that it was just an April fool’s joke. 🙂 But I think Google should now buy out Facebook. Though Google already owns Orkut, the popularity of Facebook is way higher that Orkut’s. Orkut was a different company, which Google had bought some years back. I used to love Orkut and hated people who used facebook. Orkut had it’s own fan following, and almost 90% of them were not very keen to switch to Facebook. But, this was 2 years ago. Now, I don’t use Orkut. I AM ON FACEBOOK, and I open it 3-4 time a day. A lot of people who I know, were not ready to shift to Facebook, now are avid lovers of the social networking site. Let’s discuss about the factors that made people shift from Orkut to Facebook. By the way, as far as I can see, Orkut will be going down the memory lane in less than 3 years. That’s my estimation. 🙂 1. The first thing I can think of is “Facebook’s UI”. It’s the basic thing which really affects how the website is being used. Facebook gives a better user-experience. Facebook is completely Ajax-ified. Orkut uses Ajax in bit’s and pieces. 2. The colors and layout of Orkut hurts the eyes. Whereas, Facebook’ backgroun (white) is very easy on the eyes. 3. The games on Facebook like “Mafia wars”, “Farmville” and “Knighthood” were instant success. Orkut missed out on these features. 4. Orkut introduced games and contests, very late. And they were not as good as Facebook’s. 5. Communities or groups on Orkut, well, it wasn’t properly used by the people, whereas on Facebook, these actually help out a lot of people. 6. Orkut has Ads everywhere, which makes some pages look odd. Ads on Facebook were small and were placed at the right places. They actually look good sometimes and some of them are indeed clickable. 🙂 I never click on something that has “Google Adsense” written on it. These are some of the things that I think might be reasons for the downfall of Orkut. Orkut was of-course quite popular. But now, It’s Facebook who is taking away users from Google. Google should buy Facebook now to stay in the Social Networking business. I don’t want Microsoft to buy Facebook. But I don’t think Facebook will ever agree to Google’s offer just in case there’s one. It’s doing good.