Orkut Büyükkökten

Orkut Büyükkökten (born February 6, 1975) is a Turkish software engineer who developed the social networking services Club Nexus, inCircle and Orkut.

Originally from Konya, Turkey, Büyükkökten obtained a B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering and Information Science from Bilkent University in Ankara. He received both a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. His research at Stanford focused on Web search and efficient PDA usage.

Orkut has been building and working on online communities since 2000. He introduced his first social network, named Club Nexus at Stanford in the fall of 2001. Club Nexus was the first college-specific social network. It was a system built to serve the networking and communication needs of the Stanford online community. Students could use Club Nexus to send e-mail and invitations, chat, post events, buy and sell used goods, search for people with similar interests, place personals, display their artwork or post editorial columns. Within a few months of its introduction, Club Nexus attracted over 2,000 undergraduates.

Later, Orkut introduced an alumni social network, named inCircle for the Stanford Alumni Association intended for use by university alumni groups.

After joining Google, Orkut decided to use his 20% time to develop a social network. He said: "My dream was to connect all the Internet users so they can relate to each other, it can make such a difference in people's lives." The product manager and Marissa Mayer thought of naming the service after its creator. "Orkut.com" belonged to Orkut Büyükkökten himself. Google convinced him, and its social networking service was called Orkut.

Currently, Orkut Büyükkökten is a product manager at Google. He also is a certified masseur, an avid ballroom dancer and likes to make chocolate fondue.