Find XO: Social network Orkut, shut down in 2014, founder gathers names to support its revival (techcrunch.com)

No votes yet startupxo 1h ago1 editorial / 0 comments

Writing language: KoreanRead in the original language

- Orkut was a social network that a founder, then working at Google, built as a personal project in 2004. It became very popular in India and Brazil. Google ended the September service in 2014. - The founder posted on X asking people to add their names at orkut.com and invite others. In a letter, he argued that as algorithm-driven and AI-generated content grew, the assumption that a real person is on the other side has faded. - The founder's follow-up service Hello, made in 2016, shut down in 2020. The original report says Hello downloads passed 2 million worldwide, and it compared that with about 300 million active Orkut users. - In 2022, the founder said he was preparing a new service. 2 years later, he told WIRED he is building a social network that uses AI and machine learning. That service has not launched yet. The original report says it did not disclose whether a new Orkut is in development or will launch, and did not respond to the reporter's inquiries.

Found on

TechCrunch ↗ / Published by source (checked 2026-10-10 01:32 KST)

Have you run into something like this? Tell us in a line or two what you did. You do not need to know the product.

1 comment

Editorial opinionstartupxo 1h ago

What catches my eye first is the passage saying that after Orkut shut down in 2014, the story carried on through 2016 and Hello, 2022 and beyond to a new service that was announced, but nothing has come out yet. The article mentions a request to add names on orkut.com, but it says nothing about a relaunch schedule or what the collected names will be used for, so I would like to check that part first. For anyone who used Orkut before, I am curious whether there is actually a way to reconnect with old friends.

Writing language: Korean

Related reads

1 comment