Orkut enters Social Networking Sphere

Props to Google for supporting their people in personal projects. If this is scalable I expect Google to make this an official offering. Right now it is quasi connected..." Orkut's Palace of Love"???

Orkut

is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends.
We are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.

Orkut at Netcraft Query

OS, Web Server and Hosting History for www.orkut.com
OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
Linux Orkut's Palace of Love 19-Dec-2003 66.28.250.19 Cogent Communications

Jeremy Zawodny's blog: Watch out Friendster, here comes Google's Orkut

It's getting warm in this space, isn't it?

Anyone have an Orkut invite you can send my way? :-)

Google spawns social networking service

A Google representative said that the site is the independent project of one of its engineers, Orkut Buyukkokten, who works on user interface design for Google. Buyukkokten, a computer science doctoral candidate at Stanford University before joining Google, created Orkut.com in the past several months by working on it about one day a week--an amount that Google asks all of its engineers to devote to personal projects. Buyukkokten, with the help of a few other engineers, developed Orkut out of his passion for social networking services.

Google spokeswoman Eileen Rodriquez said that despite Orkut's affiliation, the service is not part of Google's product portfolio at this time. "We're always looking at opportunities to expand our search products, but we currently have no plans in the social networking market."