Orkut is an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships. Similar to Friendster and MySpace, Orkut goes a step further by permitting the creation of easy-to-setup simple forums (called "communities") of users. Since October 2006, Orkut permits users to create accounts without an invitation. In April 2007, Orkut introduced polls in communities
Orkut has a list of features unique to itself like "Scrapbook","Communities" etc., apart from the normal features like messaging and photo album.
A user first creates his or her "Profile", in which he/she mentions his/her "Social", "Professional" and "Personal" details, with the option of choosing which group ("Friends", "Friend's friends","everyone") of people would be allowed to view the particulars. A user can also upload his/her photo as the photo of his profile. Orkut added a feature in June 2007 where a user can completely remove his profile photo.
Another unique feature of orkut is "Communities". Anyone with an orkut account can create a community on anything. One can post topics, inform users about an event, ask them questions or just play games. There are more than a million communities on orkut on absolutely everything from pizza to pasta from Film star to superstar, from your pet to your teacher. The 1st 5 communities on orkut were started with in 24 hrs of launch of orkut.[4] In April 2007, orkut added a feature called "Polls" where in community users can be polled. Participation can be open for all or can be restricted to only the members of community.
