The decade that was: Yellow Pages, Orkut, Myspace and other things that died
As the decade comes to an end, we take a look at all the things that will remind us of the glorious days gone by.
By ET Online | Updated:
Agencies
From (L-R, clockwise): Yellow pages, Orkut and Yahoo! Messenger, things that we will not be taking with us to the next decade.
2010s were a wild decade. So many monumental things happened in the last 10 years that it’s almost hard to keep track. The world collectively moved on from dial-up Internet connection to superfast Wi-Fis and experienced life at a much faster rate, literally and figuratively.
With a new decade almost knocking at our doors - yes that debate still rages - let us revisit some of the discontinued things that will always remind us of the 2010s. Read on, and brace yourselves for major feels.
1. Yellow Pages
These directories might be sitting in forgotten corners of our cupboards collecting dust, but it were these bunch of papers, which have now become obsolete, that gave the ‘90s their charm.
Remember glancing through 100 pages of a telephone directory just to dial a simple telephone number? Those were the days when our phones did not have the storage space for a bajillion contacts and these beautiful yellow pages came to our rescue.
Perusing a yellow pages directory, which has become obsolete, seemed like a herculean task to undertake back then. These directories might be sitting in forgotten corners of our cupboards collecting dust, but it were these bunch of papers, which have now become obsolete, that gave the ‘90s their charm.
Before Facebook painted our mobile screen blue, it was the pinkish-purple hue of Orkut that ruled the world of social networking. Before Insta DMs and poking on Facebook came along, people used to scroll through their scrapbooks on Orkut. Orkut was one of the most popular social networking platforms that was used in India between the years 2005-2008.
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Orkut allowed users to interact with new and old friends and create ‘communities’ (akin to Facebook groups) where users sharing similar interests could interact with each other.
Before Facebook painted our mobile screen blue, it was the pinkish-purple hue of Orkut that ruled the world of social networking and is a major source of nostalgia for the batch of 2000. A million hearts broke when Google decided to shut down Orkut completely on September 30, 2014 and gave an option to the users to export their photographs.
Google engineering director Paulo Golgher said in a blog post: "Over the past decade, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and Google+ have taken off, with communities springing up in every corner of the world. Because the growth of these communities has outpaced Orkut's growth, we've decided to bid Orkut farewell."
3. Yahoo! Messenger
Before WhatsApp or even BlackBerry came along, the world of ‘chatrooms’ used to dominate online messaging.
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The kids who use Facebook Messenger and iMessage today, probably don’t know about the much-popular and celebrated, Yahoo! Messenger, which used to be a rage among the ‘00s kids.
Before WhatsApp or even BlackBerry came along, the world of ‘chatrooms’ used to dominate online messaging, with almost every single person asking for ‘ASL’, a shorthand that used to be the rage back then.
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Yahoo! Messenger allowed us to create avatars, enter chatrooms and chat with random people. The thrill of having a real-time conversation with someone on the Internet was exhilarating.
However, soon Yahoo! Messenger became obsolete and the good folks at Yahoo! decided that it was time to move on. In 2016, Yahoo! Published on its blog: “While today we provide basic inter-operation between the legacy product and the new Messenger, we encourage all of our users to complete their transition to the new Yahoo Messenger as we will no longer support the legacy platform as of August 5, 2016”.
Needless to say, with Yahoo! Messenger going away, a part of our childhood will always be buried with it.
4. Myspace
Myspace, much like Orkut, left its mark on the social networking space before Facebook took over. Orkut’s sole competitor in the social networking space, Myspace, much like Orkut, was immensely popular in the beginning of the decade. In sharp contrast to the perfection embodied by Instagram, Myspace was all about being yourself.
From mastering HTML to create beautiful custom profile pages to choosing the theme song which will be heard by every profile visitor, Myspace is what the old Internet Wonderland was like.
Myspace, much like Orkut, left its mark on the social networking space before Facebook took over.
5. Walkman
Debuted in 1979, the original Walkman revolutionized the way we listen to music. Jamming to hit numbers by Akon, transferring them from one flip-phone to another via Bluetooth and listening to them on Walkman was one of the defining moments of the first half of theecade.
Sony’s Walkman MP3 player allowed us to listen to music on-the-go. Much like the traditional iPod, Walkman had its own set of loyal fans who absolutely adored carrying the lightweight, nifty piece of tech around.
Debuted in 1979, the original Walkman revolutionized the way we listen to music. On the 40th anniversary of the iconic portable music player, Sony tried cashing in on the nostalgia and launched the retro edition of its modern Walkman which was mostly received by users.
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