Andrew Orlowski’s “exclusive” to The Register, Google
debuts Friendster-clone Orkut

Google will shortly unveil its social networking site, Orkut. […]
Undetered by the feeding frenzy around the social networking bubble, and
rebuffed by Friendster Inc, which it attempted to buy, Google has
decided to build one better.

Orkut FAQ, Why is the
site called Orkut?

orkut.com is a new social networking service named for the Google
engineer who developed it, Orkut Buyukkokten. (Orkut is easier to spell
and pronounce that Buyukkokten.) This was created as an independent
project and is not part of the Google product portfolio.