Orkut was an interesting experiment in social media. While it may now lay on the ashheap of history, it was a contender against Facebook and other similar sites. Created literally days before Facebook, Orkut, named after its founder, the then Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten, Orkut offered many similarities to Facebook. It became especially popular in India and Brazil and eventually control moved to Brazil. Orkut was shut down on September 30, 2014. Competition from Facebook, YouTube, other blogging sites, and even Google itself with Google+, led to falling popularity. A lot of the problem came from overloaded servers; the site quickly exceeded server capacity and had to be re-written from the ground up. This delay led to the loss of a lot of users. The user interface was also clunky. In the end, Google had developed Google+, a competitor, and there was only room for one at Google. The Orkut website still exists and promises “something new”. Apparently, it has been in that state since 2022. Orkut Büyükkökten tried again with a site called Hello, but it did not attract enough users and so was short-lived. And he’s at it again, building a site that will use AI in some way to bring users together.

Many of the features in Orkut became standard with competitors. A real problem came with the Orkut interface – other sites made it easier to do things, such as share photos. One thing I liked was that it was invitation only, which would increase the likelihood that the person who accepts the invitation would actively participate in the group that issued the invitation. At one point there were over 1.5 million communities. However, it also means that interested users who aren’t invited couldn’t become an Orkut user and explore the site. A lot of people were interested because of the association with Google, but by being invitation only some of that borrowed goodwill was lost.

I’m not certain why Orkut became so popular in Brazil, but at one point about 90% of page views came from Brazilian users. Büyükkökten attributes it to Brazilians being open and having a lot of connections and also having a tendency to be early adapters. Apparently, Orkut was popular with wealthier Brazilians, but as those less well off began to populate the space, the wealthier users moved to Facebook and other sites, and eventually the “riff raff” followed, dropping the user base to where it was no longer financially viable. It had some popularity in Finland, because apparently “Orkut” in Finnish means “multiple orgasms”, and users thought it was an adult site. However, because the site couldn’t satisfy them, such users moved on quickly.

There are many lessons to be learned from the rise and fall of Orkut. The most important lesson is that, when you stop meeting the needs of your customers, you will lose them to those who do.

Macneill, K. (2024, June 17). Orkut’s Founder Is Still Dreaming of a Social Media Utopia. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/orkut-founder-social-media-utopia/

Orkut. (2025, March 24). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut

The short-lived fame of Orkut. (2025). University College London. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post/stories/the-short-lived-fame-of-orkut