Google’s Orkut Buyukkokten is pulling back his Orkut.com social networking
experiment back into R&D land (at least for a couple of days).

My first impressions are definitely positive - Orkut seems to hit the sweet spot
between the business-like LinkedIn service and Friendster (described here
as “a high-school dance mixed with a virtual Rolodex”.

Average IQ of the current members (7600+) is probably off the charts, thanks
to Google’s CalTech, Stanford and MIT connections. Larry Page, Sergei Bryn
and Eric Schmidt are there, as are countless net personalities like Clay
Shirkey, Sam Ruby, Tim O’Reilly and Nova Spivack.

One site feature that is in serious need of a redesign is the Communities
section. It lacks any hierarchy and already has dupes among the bevy of
groups started by its initial members.