Google will shut down its failed social-networking service, Orkut, which was launched ten years ago. Orkut, which is widely used in Brazil and India but hasn't caught on more broadly, will go offline on Sept. 30, Google said.

"Over the past decade, 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," Google said in a post on the Orkut blog on Monday.

"If you don't want your posts or name to be included in the community archive, you can remove Orkut permanently from your Google account," Google said.

Orkut was launched early in 2004, the same year that Facebook. Google then launched Google+ in 2011, which has also not managed to reach the popularity of Facebook. Google + is is more a "user identity" system service that complements Google's various Web properties.