In 2004, Google took the project of a Turkish software engineer seriously. At that time, Facebook or social media terms were not yet in our lives. Google’s project called Orkut.com reached 300 million members and became the first major social media channel in history. Let’s take a closer look at this magnificent story and that Turkish engineer.
Orkut Büyükkökten. He completed his primary and high school education in Konya. Afterwards, he won the Computer Engineering Department of Bilkent University. He made a life-changing decision for his graduate education, He applied to Stanford University and was accepted.
Büyükkökten’s career took off very quickly because he had just completed his graduate studies when he received job offers from Google and Microsoft. Microsoft offered a job for the tablet devices it was preparing at that time. Young Orkut, who is very close to where he lives, He accepted Google’s offer.
When Büyükkökten took a job as a software engineer at Google in 2002, the world had just entered the millennium; Even smartphones weren’t around yet.
The management system that Google still maintains, enabling its employees to run for their personal goals, has benefited Büyükkökten. This system saves 20% of the working hours of the employees. allowed them to devote themselves to their own projects. Orkut Büyükkökten founded Orkut.com, one of the world’s first social networks, which he developed under his own name, during this time period.
Orkut Büyükkökten holding a guitar at a primary school performance
Why was Orkut, the world’s largest social network before Facebook, shut down?
Image: Orkut Büyükkökten (left) with Google’s top names Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Marissa Mayer.
When the Orkut.com project caught the attention of Google, Büyükkökten received great support from his company. As the social network Orkut.com reached 300 million users worldwide, Facebook, developed in a dorm room at Stanford University, was also on the rise. When Orkut.com reaches 300 million users Facebook was a baby; So much so that Facebook reached the same number of users in 2009.
Orkut Büyükkökten and the Orkut.com team
In the intervening years, it was Facebook that introduced the term social media into our lives. Facebook is developing at a rapid pace. Orkut.com started to count down.
Büyükkökten left the Orkut.com team in 2008 and moved to a higher level product manager at Google. Here is one of the biggest names who will switch to Yahoo later on and make Google what it is today. He worked with Marissa Mayer. As a product manager, Büyükkökten became one of the names that changed Google’s vision and design approach.
Büyükkökten, Google product manager, with her colleague Marrissa Mayers
In the period when Orkut.com was popular, access to the internet and social networks was limited to computers. People were just getting acquainted with such experiences. Today, the place where social media is most channeled is became mobile devices. Orkut.com failed to pass this change.
Towards 2014, Google was against Facebook, which now began to compete directly with itself. He wanted to polish Orkut.com. Although many strategies have been tried for this, Google lost the leadership to Mark Zuckerberg in the field where it achieved firsts through a global Turkish engineer.
When the Orkut.com network began to fall out of favor, Google launched a new social media project. Launched the Google+ network. For a while, Orkut.com and Google+ users connected through the same account.
In September 2014, Orkut.com was unplugged. Google has decided to continue on its way with Google+.
Büyükkökten saw his new project Hello.com as a spiritual successor to Orkut.com. He wanted to build a social network that would bring people together for their true identities and as they are. Büyükkökten is never on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. true friends believed not to be won.
In these channels, users communicated only with people they knew and knew, and expressed themselves to their friends and people who followed them. Hello.com, on the other hand, did not embrace the real-world physical environment, but rather a dating site about common interests, location, reputation and personality came to the fore.
Hello.com team founded by Büyükkökten
Hello.com was the social network that had a serious user base in India in the past years. in-house He was employing engineers he transferred from Google. The company was also winking back to the old Orkut.com days using Google Cloud Platform. Büyükkökten explains his motivation as follows:
“I want to be someone who has a significant impact, making the world a better place.”
Orkut Büyükkökten, as a young man brought up from the heart of Konya, Before Mark Zuckerberg was about to change the world. This story, which did not end as you expected, may be an example for many people who complain about the conditions in our country and do not work as an excuse.
Adventures that seem “utopian” to most of our country’s youth, such as entrepreneurship and the implementation of new ideas, They can be guides to defeat the geographical destiny. Anyone who works by giving their due can reach a valuable point in the eyes of world giants like Orkut Büyükkökten.
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