Orkut’s Founder Is Still Dreaming of a Social Media Utopia

Before Orkut launched successful January 2004, Büyükkökten warned the squad that the level he’d built it connected could grip lone 200,000 users. It wouldn't beryllium capable to scale. “They said, let's conscionable motorboat and spot what happens,” helium explains. The remainder is online history. “It grew truthful fast. Before we knew it, we had millions of users,” helium says.

Orkut featured a integer Scrapbook and the quality to springiness radical compliments (ranging from “trustworthy” to “sexy”), make communities, and curate your precise ain Crush List. “It reflected each of my property traits. You could flatter radical by saying however chill they were, but you could ne'er accidental thing antagonistic astir them,” helium says.

At first, Orkut was fashionable successful the US and Japan. But, arsenic predicted, server issues severed its transportation to its users. “We started having a batch of scalability issues and infrastructure problems,” Büyükkökten says. They were forced to rewrite the full level utilizing C++, Java, and Google's tools. The process took an full year, and scores of archetypal users dropped disconnected owed to sluggish speeds and one-too-many encounters with Orkut’s now-nostalgic “Bad, atrocious server, nary donut for you” mistake message.

Around this time, though, the tract became incredibly fashionable successful Finland. Büyükkökten was bemused. “I couldn't fig it retired until I spoke to a person who speaks Finnish. And helium said: ‘Do you cognize what your sanction means?’ I didn’t. He told maine that orkut means aggregate orgasms.” Come again? “Yes, truthful successful Finland, everyone thought they were signing up to an big site. But past they would permission consecutive aft arsenic we couldn't fulfill them,” helium laughs.

Awkward treble meanings aside, Orkut continued to dispersed crossed the world. In summation to exploding successful Estonia, the level went mega successful India. Its existent 2nd home, though, was Brazil. “It became a immense success. A batch of radical deliberation I'm Brazilian due to the fact that of this,” Büyükkökten explains. He has a mentation astir wherefore Brazil went nuts for Orkut. “Brazil's civilization is precise welcoming and friendly. It's each astir friendships and they attraction astir connections. They're besides precise aboriginal adopters of technology,” helium says. At its peak, 11 cardinal of Brazil’s 14 cardinal net users were connected Orkut, astir logging connected done cybercafes. It took Facebook 7 years to drawback up.
But Orkut wasn’t without its problems (and galore fake profiles). The tract was banned successful Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Government authorities successful Brazil and India had concerns astir drug-related contented and kid pornography, thing Büyükkökten denies existed connected Orkut. Brazilians coined the connection orkutização to picture a societal media tract similar Orkut becoming little chill aft going mainstream. In 2014, having hemorrhaged users owed to dilatory server speeds, Facebook's much intuitive interface, and issues surrounding privacy, Orkut went offline. “Vic Gundotra, successful complaint of Google+, decided against having immoderate competing societal products,” Büyükkökten explains.

But Büyükkökten has fond memories. “We had truthful galore stories of radical falling successful emotion and moving successful unneurotic from antithetic parts of the world. I person a person successful Canada who met his woman successful Brazil done Orkut, a person successful New York who met his woman successful Estonia and present they're joined with 2 kids.” helium says. It besides provided a level for number communities. “I was talking to a cheery writer from a tiny municipality successful São Paulo who told maine that uncovering each these LGBTQ radical connected Orkut transformed his life,” helium adds.

Büyükkökten near Google successful 2014 and founded a caller societal network, again featuring a elemental five-letter title: Hello. He wanted to absorption connected affirmative connection. It utilized “loves” alternatively than likes, and users could take from much than 100 personae, ranging from Cricket Fan to Fashion Enthusiast, and past were connected to like-minded radical with communal interests. Soft-launched successful Brazil successful 2018 with 2 cardinal users, Hello enjoyed “ultra-high engagement” that Büyükkökten claims surpassed the likes of Instagram and Twitter. “One of the things that stood retired successful our idiosyncratic surveys was that radical said erstwhile they unfastened Hello, it makes them happy.”

The app was downloaded much than 2 cardinal times—a fraction of the users Orkut enjoyed—but Büyükkökten is arrogant of it. “It surpassed each our dreams. There were galore instances wherever our K-Factor (the fig of caller radical that existing users bring to an app) reached 3, starring america to exponential growth,” helium says. But, successful 2020, Büyükkökten bid goodbye to Hello.
Now he’s moving connected a caller platform. “It’ll leverage AI and instrumentality learning to optimize for improving happiness, bringing radical together, fostering communities, empowering users, and creating a amended society,” helium says. “Connection volition beryllium the cornerstone of design, interaction, product, and experience.” And the name? “If I told you the caller brand, you would person an aha infinitesimal and everything would beryllium crystal clear,” helium says.

Once again, it’s driven by his enduring tendency to link people. “One of the biggest ills of nine is the diminution successful societal capital. After smartphones and the pandemic, we person stopped hanging retired with our friends and don't cognize our neighbors. We person a loneliness epidemic,” helium says.
He is fiercely captious of existent platforms. “My biggest passionateness successful beingness is connecting radical done technology. But erstwhile was the past clip you met idiosyncratic connected societal media? It’s creating shame, pessimism, division, depression, and anxiety,” helium says. For Büyükkökten, optimism is much important than optimization. “These companies person engineered the algorithm for revenue,” helium says. “But it's been atrocious for intelligence health. The satellite is terrifying close present and a batch of that has travel done societal media. There's truthful overmuch hate,” helium says.

Instead, helium wants societal media to beryllium a spot of emotion and a facilitator for gathering caller radical successful person. But wherefore volition it enactment this clip around? “That’s a truly bully question,” helium says. “One happening that has been truly accordant is that radical miss Orkut close now.” It’s true—Brazilian societal media has precocious been abuzz with memes and memories to observe the site’s 20th birthday. “A teenage lad adjacent precocious drove 10 hours to conscionable maine astatine a league to speech astir Orkut. And I was like, however is that adjacent possible?” helium laughs. Orkut’s landing leafage is inactive live, featuring an unfastened missive calling for a societal media utopia.