Orkut Founder is back, says Hello to India once again

Orkut Buyukkokten, the founder of social network Orkut.com and CEO of Hello Network, Inc., has launched his new network in India. The Hello app is built specifically for the new mobile-generation and brings people together around their interests to create positive, meaningful, authentic connections and sustained social engagement. 

Hello models the way people pursue their interests and make friends in the real world to overcome the artificial barriers and behaviours created by technology affecting connecting and communicating. 

Built around interest-based personas and communities where users express their creations, ideas and experiences, Hello makes it easy to discover friendly people who share the same interests and it facilitates conversation leading to true connections. 

Orkut Buyukkokten said, “Passions are often the start of our conversations in real life. 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. 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.” 

The Hello app has been available to early adopters in Brazil, with nearly 1 million downloads, and has been available to a beta test audience in India for the past several months, with typical users spending over 320 minutes each month on the app. Reflecting the popularity of sport, entertainment, devotion, and technology in India, the top personas among beta users are Bollywood Fan, Cricket Fan, Entrepreneur, Fashion Enthusiast, Fitness Buff, Foodie, Music Fan, Philosopher, Spiritualist, and Techie. Over 55 per cent of Indian users create content weekly, nearly double the average across other social networks. 

The Hello app is free on the App Store and Google Play and is available from iOS 9 and KitKat for Android. 

Some key features of Hello Network:

• Connect with people in one’s neighborhood and around the world
• Join communities focused on one’s top interests and be a part of the conversation
• Explore what one loves and discover new friends
• Share one’s creations, ideas and experiences and build connections
• As interests change, simply adjust the personas and the app changes with the user

Hello Network, Inc. was founded by Orkut Buyukkokten and John Murphy with a small group of Google engineers. After witnessing the evolution of social networking over the past 18 years, and the way it had begun to have a negative impact on people’s lives, Orkut was inspired to once again change how the world does social – by bringing people from all across the world together around their common passions. From company headquarters in San Francisco, California, the team has spent the past two years testing out ideas and listening to users to create a better way to do social. Hello Network is actively seeking strategic partnerships to help realise its mission.