Orkut
Google's first major social network became part of everyday internet life in Brazil and India, then gave users three months to preserve a decade of communities.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Officially Gone
- Peak stage
- general availability
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
A formally operated Google social-networking service created by engineer Orkut Büyükkökten.
Users built profiles, friendships, testimonials and topic communities, with particularly deep adoption in Brazil and India.
Existence timeline
Google opens its invitation-based social network.
Operations and community activity concentrate around a vast Brazilian audience.
The service becomes a mainstream social space in both countries.
Google gives users time to export photos and profile data.
Orkut stops ordinary public operation after more than a decade.
Why it ended
Google closed Orkut on 30 September 2014 as newer social products and YouTube communities outgrew it.
Last confirmed trace
Google preserved a public community archive for a period, while user exports, screenshots and archived pages retain fragments of the service.
What it left behind
Orkut demonstrates that global platform history looks different outside the United States, where it was often overshadowed by later networks.
How we classified it
The archive unit reached normal public release or operation and is no longer obtainable in its original public form.
Verified normal public availability maps to 100 under Arrival Score V1.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.