Orkut's founder wants to bring the social network back

Orkut Büyükkökten, founder of the once-popular social network Orkut, is calling on former users to help bring it back. In a post on X on Thursday, Büyükkökten urged people to visit Orkut.com and add their names in support of reviving the platform, and to invite others to do the same. Orkut first launched in 2004 as a side project by Büyükkökten, now 51, while he was working at Google. The network became hugely popular in India and Brazil before losing ground to Facebook; Google shut it down in September 2014, shifting its focus to other platforms, including Google+ and YouTube.

In a letter published on Orkut.com, Büyükkökten criticized how social media has evolved over the past two decades, particularly the growing influence of algorithms and AI-generated content. “Artificial intelligence is extraordinary technology, but it’s dissolving the one premise that made social networking special and worth building: that there was a person on the other side,” he wrote. He said he wants to rebuild an internet built around authentic people, real connection, and genuine belonging.

This isn’t Büyükkökten’s first attempt to return to social networking. In 2016, two years after Orkut shut down, he launched Hello, a social network focused on connecting people through shared interests; it shut down in 2020 after attracting more than 2 million downloads worldwide, compared with Orkut’s about 300 million active users. In 2022, Büyükkökten hinted at another social-networking venture in a note on Orkut.com, saying he was building something new, without offering further details. Two years later, he told WIRED he was working on a social network that would leverage AI and machine learning to bring people together and build communities. That platform has yet to launch.

Büyükkökten is now asking people to register their support for Orkut’s return, but he has not clarified whether a new version of the platform is already in development or whether it will ever launch. An email seeking comment from Büyükkökten did not elicit a response.

Why it matters

If Büyükkökten does relaunch Orkut, the test will be sharpest in Brazil, one of the two markets — alongside India — where the original network was most popular, and where nostalgia for a pre-algorithm, pre-AI social network may run deepest.