I resisted all the invitations to join Friendster and all those other community sites, but a while back I finally caved and signed up for Orkut.
I don't get the hype. I haven't found any use for these social networking sites. Whoo-hoo, I'm connected to five people who connect me to three million other people. Yee-ha, I'm so popular. What's the point? Everyone's coming out with one. Not since the latest digital download music store has more capital been invested in more money-wasting me-too ventures. What a waste of creative energy.
That's not to say the Finnish software engineer after whom Orkut was named isn't an amusing character.
As for the origin of “Orkut,” it derives not from the Finnish slang for orgasm, as many have surmised, but from the name of the Google engineer who developed the site, Orkut Buyukkokten.
“Call me Orkut,” [his personal website] reads. “I have been told that I have a colorful personality, and perhaps that is why my friends have given me more nicknames than I can remember. O-Man, Big-O, Orc, Yogi, Ivy’s Bitch (if you were not there, never mind), Party Animal, OrCute, Orkuttino, Kooter, O, Dostum, and Smooth are some of the ones that I recall at the first hand.”Why do all his nicknames sound dirty, and why can't I have nicknames like that? Posted by eugene at March 26, 2004 1:09 AMOrkut is a certified masseur and an avid ballroom dancer. “My friends say I’m a great host,” he said. “I really like making chocolate fondue. We have wine-and-cheese gatherings, we watch ‘The O.C.’ and go hot-tubbing.”