Orkut is a social networking site that is operated by Google. To sign up for the site, users simply need to visit www.orkut.com. Click the link "join now" and follow the instructions to create a Google account. Existing Google account users will not have to follow these steps. Create a Google account by choosing a user name and a password (at least 8 characters long) and following a few simple steps. Once the account is created, you will have access to a variety of Google products, all with the one login and password. With Google accounts you will not automatically be signed up for Gmail, you will need to create this as a separate account, although the user name and password will remain the same. You need to be 18 years or older to create an Orkut account. The site is named after the creator Orkut Buyukkoten, a Google employee, and it is a service designed to help users meet new friends and connect with existing friends online, much like Facebook. Orkut is the most popular of the social networking sites in Brazil, and Brazil is also the country that has the most Orkut users, with 48% of the sites users hailing from the South American country. The country with the second most Orkut users is India with 39%, whilst only 2.2% of Orkut users are resident in the United States. Orkut was originally managed in California, but because of the success and popularity of the site in Brazil, in 2008 Google moved the entire operation to Brazil. It is now managed in Belo Horizonte by Google Brazil. The website has over 100 million users worldwide.
