Orkut Creator Seeks Support to Relaunch Social Network

    Orkut Büyükkökten, the creator of the Orkut social network, has asked users for support in relaunching the platform. In a post on X on Thursday, he urged people to add their names on Orkut.com and encourage others to join as well. The initiative emphasizes friendship, community and genuine communication between people. However, there is no information indicating that a new version of Orkut is being developed.    Orkut was created in 2004 as a side project while Büyükkökten was working at Google. The social network became particularly popular in India and Brazil, but later fell behind in its competition with Facebook. Google shut down the platform in September 2014, shifting its focus to other services such as Google+ and YouTube.    In a letter published on his website, Büyükkökten criticized the changes social media has undergone over the past 20 years. In his view, communication between real people is weakening as the influence of algorithms and AI-generated content grows. Büyükkökten said he wants to rebuild the internet around real people, genuine relationships and a sense of connection to a community.    This is not Büyükkökten's first attempt to return to social networking. In 2016, 2 years after Orkut shut down, he launched Hello, a platform that connected people with shared interests. Although Hello was downloaded more than 2 million times worldwide, it shut down in 2020. By comparison, the Orkut network had approximately 300 million active users.    In 2022, Büyükkökten wrote on Orkut.com that he was developing a new project but did not provide details. 2 years later, he announced that he was working on another social network that would use artificial intelligence and machine learning to bring people together. That platform has yet to launch. It is also still unknown when Orkut will return and when its official launch will take place.