The Man Behind Orkut.com
By Jurgen Kaljuvee

Orkut.com is the new private club with hundreds of thousands of members, from Bombay to Rio to New York to Karachi. An online community that bonds over common interests and a desire to make friends, there has been at least one instance where it also has resulted in love and marriage. Turkish born Orkut Buyukkokten is the shy and unexpectedly incredibly charismatic architect of orkut.com. After graduating with a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University, the twenty-nine year old software engineer joined Google Inc. where he developed orkut.com.

How did you came up with idea for Orkut?
I always had a great passion for people. I really enjoy meeting new people, making friends, getting to know them. There are so many amazing wonderful people out there you haven't met. When you combine my passion for friends with my passion for computers, you get a social online networking site.

There are many networking sites on the Web but Orkut has managed to distinguish itself from the rest, and build a loyal fan base.
orkut.com enables users to meet people in both professional and social environments. It also offers tools to continue connecting people with one another through services like communities. Many of the existing social networking services are focused on connecting people through one channel, whether it's dating or business networking.

How would you describe Orkut`s target audience?
When we launched the site, we did not have a target audience in mind. Our demographics is very mixed. We have members from every age group, ethnicity, social role, etc. Orkut can be described as a private club where new members are added only by existing members.

	Orkut.com Website

Were you the first member to add a friend to this private club?
Yes, I was the first member to sign up.

It's incredible that orkut has gained so much popularity, despite no advertising on the part of the company.
Well, the site really started with a small number of people who invited their friends to join and then it just grew by word of mouth and invitations. I am happy to see that orkut.com has grown to have a great international presence.

But let`s say I want to be a part of Orkut community but nobody has invited me there. Why can`t I just register and then become a member?
We want to keep the community trusted and connected. Therefore, we are keeping the site as an invite-only service. Once you sign-up, you already have a friend, you are connected and you have someone who can vouch for you.

Will Orkut ever be complete, so that it doesn't need any more work or new features?
We are constantly working on performance, new features and implementing changes, enhancements suggested by users.

Seeing orkut.com become such a major player in the online community market must give you a lot of satisfaction.
I have heard many wonderful stories about people connecting, making new friends, getting jobs or finding romance through orkut.com. I am very glad to see that we are making a difference in people's lives.

What are the greatest challenges of Orkut?
One of our challenges is keeping up with our increasing growth and traffic.

I suppose you still hold the place for the most friends in Orkut community.
Not anymore. There are members that have more friends on orkut.com. However, I should say that I personally met every person on my friends list.

What`s the next big thing you`re going to invent?
I will keep that as a surprise.

Epilogue: Author's Humorous Dedication to Orkut on Orkut.com

Recently, a beautiful young Brazilian woman and an avid user of Orkut tried to convince me that Orkut’s real existence is debatable, very much like that of Jesus or even God

Well, it turns out he does exist. It must have been back in 2001 when visited my younger brother Oliver at an office in the Gates Building of computer science at Stanford where the two young geniuses worked together, fueled by cappuccino and passion, pumping out hard, yet beautiful and symphonic code like Mozart and Beethoven in hectic harmony.

Looking into the office, I saw Orkut programming absolutely perfectly. Once in a while, he turned around – hands still moving on the keyboard at a sonic speed reminding me of Neo in Matrix – and smiled faintly looking me straight in my eyes, quietly enjoying his own absolute perfection. Both awestruck and bewildered, I suddenly realized that there are even greater men in the world doing even greater things than me, and then quietly tiptoed backwards out of the office.