Remember Orkut? Its founder wants to bring it back
Orkut Büyükkökten, the founder of the defunct social network Orkut, is seeking to revive the platform with a focus on human connection and community. He has expressed criticism of modern social media's reliance on AI and algorithms.
Why it matters
The attempt to revive a legacy social platform highlights growing public and founder-level fatigue with current algorithmic social media models.
Orkut , the once-popular social networking platform that shut down more than a decade ago, may finally be making a comeback, as its founder has called on users to help revive it with a renewed focus on friendship, community, and human connection.
In a post on X on Thursday, Orkut Büyükkökten, the founder of the eponymous social network, urged users to visit Orkut.com and add their names in support of bringing it back, as well as invite others to join.
Orkut first debuted in 2004 as a side project by Büyükkökten, 51, while he was at Google. The social network went on to become hugely popular in India and Brazil but later lost ground to Facebook. Google eventually shut it down in September 2014, shifting its focus to other platforms, including Google+ and YouTube.
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