The Death of StudiVZ

Over at Deutschland Radio Kultur, media journalist Philip Banse talks about (g) why Facebook is beating out (g) its main German competitor, a Facebook clone called StudiVZ (g). Nickel summary:

• Facebook kept innovating and offering interesting new stuff such as like/dislike buttons, games, close integration with non-Facebook websites, etc., while StudiVZ just remained its boring old self.
• Since the German press relentlessly bashed Facebook for its privacy issues, StudiVZ thought ordinary users were really interested in this, and spent huge amounts of money creating gold-standard privacy safeguards that won ribbons from every German foundation. Turns out, however, that Germans actually don't care all that much about privacy. When they vote with their feet, it's to go to Facebook, privacy concerns and all.
• Social networks are only really fun when everyone you know is on them, so once Facebook began attracting a bunch of people away from StudiVZ, all their friends began following, causing a big knock-on effect.
• Germany just doesn't do the internet very well. There's no casual yet well-financed infrastructure that will fund brash, brilliant kids. Germans -- or at least the ones who have money and access to technology -- prize 'seriousness' too much, and don't realize that the Internet is driven primarily by gossip, chatter, videos, and games, and that there is serious money in these things.

Comments

[noribori]

I'm neither an active Facebook nor a StudiVZ user, so maybe I got something wrong: wasn't StudiVZ doomed from the very beginning because it was only meant for students? Not for relatives, not for working friends, not for younger pupils... isn't that a strange idea? Did they try to get only people which were already friends or knew each other already? Did they try to get snobish people who wanted to meet only people of their own kind? A more private affair? I never understood that approach...

[Ole]

I would agree on that one with Karsten. I'm currently at University and started using StudiVZ back in 2004 or 05. In 2007 when I switched to Facebook, it was mostly because I began to make more friends in foreign countries - and if I wanted to stay in touch with them, Facebook was the most convenient method to do so. StudiVZ was not even a remote possibility to do so. And as using two social networks is rather inconvenient and most german friends of mine also began to use Facebook, I didn't care anymore for StudiVZ. I still have an account there, but I don't actively use it. The only reason I keep it, is so that those few friends who still use StudiVZ and not Facebook can write me a message on StudiVZ.

[Karsten Ramelow]

Don't think its a German story. Facebook has beaten every international competitor. Of course the media is trying to make it one. That makes the topic interesting to people who are not interested in Facebook.

As to privacy: Don't you think its idiotic to try to ridicule privacy concerns because a larger part of the population doesn't care. That surely is the international argumentative line by the internation lobbying organisations that google and facebook have in Brussels and Berlin. But most of the population doesn't care about shoes mass produced by children or the destruction of the environment by huge cars.

In the end Facebook didn't win out because people didn't care about privacy, but because Facebook offers something that StudiVZ lacks: International members.

Germany has internationalised extremly over the past 5-6 years. Hardly anyone at University age who doesn't speak english or has international friends that can't use studivz. But one of the main advantages of social network is to stay in contact with international friends. No way to do that with StudiVZ.

[Cuneiform]

The entire model of business of Facebook is based on exposing the people who register with them.

If it were not that case, they would have no "unique sales proposition" over any other advertising venue.

That so many people do not recognize this is both baffling and worrisome.

[Norbert]

@Curtis: duh, I have no doubts about that, I am just astonished by the fact. In most other markets and sectors, you have a range of good and not so good products, with the not so good products nevertheless finding a customer-base, on the internet apparently not so.

[dubuc]

Most intriguing I find the second point. The media in Germany nearly always go for the privacy, whereas the average german in fact is as open (you may call it negligent) as the rest of the world and hence keeps hers/his course. German Angst is vastly media driven (Andrew, do you watch WDR3-TV on a regular basis? They are masters in generating panic in customers, yesterday they had ticks in Christmas trees).
Let's keep cool.

[lukas]

There's poetic justice in this; StudiVZ was a (German-language, red) carbon copy of Facebook from the start.

[Curtis]

@Norbert

Or, these companies offered products and services that consumers preferred over the competition.

[Norbert]

On the internet it seems there is eventually only room for one big company that serves the entire (world) market. Like Google, eBay, Amazon, Facebook - in the beginning there are competitors, but gradually on each market one monopolist remains that has sucked up all the competitors' business.

The complete lack of significant competition is quite astonishing.