Orkut Buyukkokten, who had to shut down his social media platform Orkut.com after a surge of Facebook's popularity, is back. While Facebook is dealing with a crisis in the wake of a massive data breach scandal, Buyukkokten has launched a new social network "Hello" in India.
In 2004, Buyukkokten had kicked up a storm for Google, his former company, by developing one of the first global social networking sites. But due to lack of business, Google had to shut it down in 2014.
Now, the web developer is back with his new innovation.
Built particularly for the new mobile generation, "Hello" brings people together around their interests to create positive, meaningful, authentic connections and sustained social engagement, the company said in a statement.
"We designed 'Hello' to help you make connections in the real world. It's a social network built on loves not likes, and I'm delighted to say 'Hello' to India once again," said Buyukkokten, now the CEO of San Francisco-based Hello Network Inc.
The app, currently available in Brazil with nearly one million downloads, was in the beta test mode in India for the past several months. The app is now live on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Test users spent over 320 minutes each month on the app, thus, reflecting the popularity of sport, entertainment, devotion and technology in India.
"Today's online networks force people to treat each other totally differently from how they would behave face-to-face. Technology should help us become more understanding, more optimistic, kinder and better people," the Orkut founder added.
Orkut was owned and operated by Google and was named after its creator, Orkut Buyukkokten. Google shut down Orkut on September 30, 2014.
(With inputs from IANS)
