StudiVZ – The glamour is fading (or a chronic on how lack of PR can ruin a good idea)
Update 15th of November: A better and more structured summary can be found here.
Update 9th of November: Because of the large number of comments and reactions to this article, I updated and clarified some of the issues – but it is far from complete. Further comments are welcome!
In one of my first blog-articles, I wrote about StudiVZ and TakingITGlobal.org and why I think they are better than other so-called social network.
Since then, the discussion around StudiVZ has reached new heights (Technorati,GoogleBlogSearch)- and StudiVZ faces a lot of tough, and partially justified criticism. The extent of this critique – even though it is not a mass media phenomenon, should not be underestimated. Other social networks (such as Unister.de) have become almost irrelevant after heavy criticism from bloggers (see Ice-Blog and the statistics on Alexa for a comparison of Unister.de and StudiVZ, for a history of the Unister debate see for instance Robert Basic).
Because most of my readers are not proficient enough in German language to follow the debate in the German blog-o-sphere, I want to summarize the criticism in this article and present some ideas how a better PR could help StudiVZ.
Copycat
The oldest but most repeated accusation is that StudiVZ is an almost exact copy of the popular social network Facebook. In both communities (at StudiVZ and at Facebook) and in the German blog-o-sphere the relevant facts have been repeated quite often (see Unfehlbar, Blumi, Jörg-Olaf Schäfer, Blogpiloten, Oliver Thylmann, Sichelputzer, Sebbi, ManiacMind, Alltagskakophonie, Robert Basic (I), Robert Basic (II), Sebastian Görres, Betalog, Andi, Poolie, ComputerMag, Die Wohnung or with pictures at Flickr). Even newspapers have covered the issue (Der Spiegel, Der Spiegel-Pictures). The main points are:
- The design is very similar, the order of the links are the same, most of the style sheets have only been marginally renamed and changed from blue to red, and even the names of some of the graphic-files are simply cloned.
- Apparently it is even possible to change StudiVZ into the looks of Facebook (a description can be found at Bumi) – which indicates furthermore the similiarity in structure and design.
- Some features like “poke” have simply been adopted (it’s called “Gruscheln”, see further details below), the authors of StudiVZ did not even translate ‘ poke” in the internal program code.
- The folder in which StudiVZ shows program errors is called “Fakebook” – apparently a reference to facebook.
Yet is unclear, whether the all these similarities produce a legal problem. As far as I have read, Facebook does not threaten to sue StudiVz. The founders of StudiVZ often claim that StudiVZ is simply a new development. Some bloggers also point out that the real effort is not the design, but to create the databases for running the platform (see Comment on Medienrauschen, see StudiVZ developer Dennis comments for his defense of his own programmin work at Reader’s Edition)
Other sites have also copied Facebook, such as Unister, Xianoei.Com or PhatCouch.Com – which indicates that StudiVZ copying of the Facebook idea is either not as illegal or is simply the standard business model of social networks (see Mashable (I), Mashable (II), EveryDigg, IfYouCanDreamIt, Gründerszene).
In any case, StudiVZ is expanding into other countries like France, Poland, Italy and Spain. They are not expanding into UK and Austria (which makes no sense, since Austrian students use StudiVZ, UK students use Facebook). But StudiVZ has registered the domains for some of their competitors in UK and Austria – which has drawn a huge amount criticism. Using domaines such as Unister.at or studylounge.co.uk is regarded as illegal and bad company behavior by many bloggers (see unfehlbar.net, Robert Basic, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Sichelputzer, Blogdoch) StudiVZ founder Michael Brehms apologized at Jörg-Olaf Schäfers blog and at Robert Basics’s blog but this again draws new comments from the bloggers (see Notizblog).
A recent discussion in the blog-o-sphere of German Web 2.0 startups and their American copy-counterpart also features StudiVZ quite prominently (see VisualBlog).
Bad Perfomance
For the last six or seven weeks now, StudiVZ is very slow (see Alltagskakophonie, Jörg-Olaf Schäfer, Beetlebum, Dittes, CustomerOfHell(I), CustomerOfHell(II), Blogdoch, Schnitzler). It is often impossible to log in, it is difficult to access groups and pages do not reload even after refreshing them in the browser. The recommendation by StudiVZ to use the tab function of Mozilla Firefox is criticized by bloggers for causing even more traffic and for its disability to solve the general problem. (see Sichelputzer (II) and Koosishart).
StudiVZ is blaming their telephone company and their technical apparatus (see their blog here, here, here, here and here). They claim that nobody had expected such an amount of traffic and that they are now trying to work on the software and make it leaner. But the bloggers criticise that there are other options available for keeping a site running even through maintenance. Many bloggers also criticise the communication regarding the maintenance (see Sichelputzer (I), Sichelputzer (III), Dittes (I), Dittes (II)).
The other websites of StudiVZ in other coutries are also experiencing traffic problems (see for instance France:VisualBlog or their own blog at StudiGQ).
The copy-cat PennerVZ is already making fun of StudiVZ’s server problems by claiming to build some mistakes into the software to crash their servers.
Besides the bad performance, the tools in StudiVZ are under critique. StudiVZ does not allow any connections to other sites links within StudiVZ are not usable, messages can not be accessed and it is not possible to create public groups that can be seen without signing up.
Via Email I asked the StudiVZ team about modifications and they told me that any modifications will probably take a while (see GoetheBlog, A to Z of World, my article on StudiVZ and blogs, the comment on StudiVZ and Flickr, see also the suggestions below).
Maybe it is better to follow Schnitzler who discussed why it is better to stay outside of StudiVZ.
Financing
A lot of criticism focus on the issue of financing. At the moment, StudiVZ does not charge a fee to the users and has barely any advertisement – only once a new single by German Band Juli was promoted.
Many bloggers ask: how does StudiVZ finance its staff and its infrastructure? Apparently StudiVZ costs about 60.000 to 100.000 Euros per month (see comment by Don Alphonso below) – which gives doubts whether the story told by founder Ehssan Dariani in August 2006 about StudiVZ being a small independent students project is true (see Comment of Dariani at Reader’s Edition).
Critique focues on these issues:
- StudiVZ and GoogleAds: it is rumoured that StudiVZ will soon use GoogleAds or any other forms of online advertisement (see Netzeitung and the blogs of Azrael, i-jeriko and the comment by StudiVZ founder Michael Brehm). Since prices on ads at social networks are increasing tremendously, such a move is not unlikely (see the article at TechCrunch, MarketWire via Basic Thinking (I) , Basic Thinking (II), Sebastian Görres and Mashable – a new site for covering Social Networks but with a huge gap when covering StudiVZ; see also Karmaweb for a discussion of these figures). Whether StudiVz is already making advertisement for coffee or not, is discussed by Haeby.)
- StudiVZ and Holtzbrinck: Holtzbrinck is a German publishing house which owns newspapers and book publishers. On their webpage, Martin Weber from Holtzbrinck is mentioned as being a member of board of truestees of StudiVZ (see Blogdoch) – which is together with this article is seen as an indication that Holtzbrinck wants to invest further into StudiVZ. According to Peter Turi, Holtzbrinck has already invested 10 million Euros, however this is strongly denied by StudiVZ. The issue is still unresolved, but Peter Turis claim gain momentum through a discovery by Blogbar: the company Parship which as far as I understand is a mixture between Marketing, PR and Financing Agency.
- StudiVZ and Samwer brothers: StudiVZ is already supported financially by the Samwer brothers with
about 5.000at least 500.000 Euros (see comment by Don Alphonso). The Samwer brothers have also created the mobile phone company Jamba (sells annoying cell phone tunes) and have a bad reputation – not only for their products but also how they treat their eimployees (see article in Tagesspiegel, Golem and the blog Spreeblick). Apparently they financed StudiVZ Ltd before Holtzbrinck got involved. - StudiVZ and Spreadshirt: The role of Lukasz Gadowski, founder of spreadshirt remains unclear, fuelled through an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The founder of Spreadshirt has invested money, knowledge and apparently time into StudiVZ and it is often unclear how much he is involved in the running of the project.
- StudiVZ and MyVideo.de: Medienrauschen claims that MyVideo.de and StudiVZ have the same financing institution: ProSiebenSat1MediaGroup. MyVideo.de hosted also the StudiVZ Song Competition which generated traffic for both sites. (see Blogdoch and comment by Jörg-Olaf Schäfers below)
- StudiVZ and Gruscheln(TM): can StudiVZ after stealing the Poke-Feature from Facebook and translating it to Gruscheln (which they believe is now entering German language) be registered as a German trademark (and then demand a fee from anybody who is using without permission?). Well, we’ve had the debate with “to google someone” – the trademark is gone if it enters common language (see Robert Basic)
The accusations are found to a varying degree in a number of blogs (see Medienrauschen, Ichdoof and Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (I) and Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (II), FelixOnTour). StudiVZ has reacted to these accusations by trying to identify the relations between StudiVZ, Samwer, Sweatshirt and Holtzbrinck (see here and here), but apparently not always to the satisfaction of the blog-o-sphere.
Even worse, with the German StudiVZ having intransparent ownership structures, the Spanish, French, Polish and Italian spin-offs show the same problems: unclear identification of ownership and corporate structure (see Blogbar (I), Blogbar (II)).
Whether StudiVZ is likely to be bought up by another company in the future is discused by Ice Blog (I) and Ice Blog (II).
StudiVZ founder Ehssan Dariani acknowledges the fact that the Samwer brothers and Spreadshirt-Lukas are invovled in his comment at Reader’s Edition.
Censorship
Some criticism focuses also on the issue of censorship. Apparently some StudiVZ-posts by users which have criticised StudiVZ have been deleted by the administrators of the site (see this Discussion Thread at StudiVZ, see Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Simon-Martin and h1rschgehege, Blogdoch). This allegations have not been commented by StudiVZ.
Privacy
Criticism also focusses on the issue of user data and its alleged missing protection by StudiVz. In case StudiVZ is being sold to a larger commercial user – which is not too unlikely – some bloggers claim that the disclaimer of StudiVZ is no guarantee that the data is not abused (see Spiegel , StudiVZ Press Speaker in jetzt.de and the blog of Jörg-Olaf Schäfers).
StudiVZ founder Ehssan Dariani comments the privacy issue at Reader’s Edition claiming that the users can decide about how much private data other users can see – even though the user cannot decide how much private data StudiVZ can see.
Bad Company Communication
On top of all these problems, the founders of StudiVZ seem to be ill-advised on their PR strategy. Even though they have their own blog, they are not systematically trying to organize public support for their website in the blog-o-sphere by communicating about problems and reacting to critique. Instead they often respond with bad communication. Some bloggers also criticize that StudiVZ does not fully disclose their business model (see Sichelputzer, Robert Basic (I), Robert Basic (II), Sherpa, Visual Blog, Blognroll, BlogDoch, Fallenbeck, Agenturblog).
While StudiVZ authors appeared with their names on other people’s blogs, some criticism recently emergy on alleged fake-blogging, which up until now was mostly done by Unister.de (see Don Alphonso (I) and DonAlphonso (II)). Also the question of spam-advertising for the French StudiVZ spin-off is discussed (see Blogbar)
Earlier discussions focused also on the questions whether the number of student members in StudiVZ is real – another sign of intransparent corporate communication(see Reader’s Edition).
Within StudiVZ resistance towards the personal connection between StudiVZ and its founder Ehssan Dariani is rising and people start to revolt against the spread of his private life on StudiVZ and its blogs.
StudiVZ has tried to react in their blogs claiming that their bad communication policy is due to their workload, but at the same time claiming that some criticism is unproductive and will not be displayed on their blog (see here and here).
Because of the above criticism and the bad performance, the decision (see also StudiVZBlog) to award StudiVZ the online star 2006 is heavily under critique (see Chaos or Blogdoch).
And the fact that many bloggers who are not speaking English are discussing what the heck StudiVZ means – it just means Student Directory – shows that the name of the company is not chosen with careful thinking (see Readster, David Warwick).Even worse private communication
The founder of StudiVZ is under especially heavy critique. Since this article wants to give an overview, this critique needs to be mentioned. But personally, I think the above points are already strong enough – and even though Ehssan Dariani presents himself through StudiVZ, it is in my eyes quite imature by the blog-o-sphere to focus too strongly on these personal problems.
A lot of bloggers (such as BooCompany) or newspapers (such as heise.de) point to a (now partially withdrawn) You-Tube Video which features the founder of StudiVZ Ehssan Dariani in the subway of Berlin and apparently how he crashes while flirting with a girl. Since the video is partially withdrawn, the hints of bloggers only arouse further and a debate is growing why the video has been withdrawn. Maybe it would have been better to keep it online. At Peter Turis Weblog the videos can still be found. Some bloggers criticize the publishing of the videos since critique should focus on the company’s behavior (see Robert Basic, Blogdoch, Goetheblog, Björnstar, Meckerziege).
Even worse, bloggers discovered that the domain www.voelkischer-beobachter.de (the link is not here on purpose!) is registered under Darianis name. The historical details can be found at Wikipedia, in essence the name refers to a German Nazi Newspaper which was one of the main propaganda tools for Hitler and others to spread their disastrous ideas. The domain now links to Titanic-Magazin – a left-wing satirical newspaper who apparently has not discovered the abuse of its homepage. (The domain www.voelkischerbeobachter.de links to a German satirical movie about Hitler.) Some bloggers speculate about Darianis political motives – but in any case it just shows some extreme type of stupidity and PR-disability (see Robert Basic, Peter Turi, Don Alphonso, Blogbar, Der Sichelputzer, Dittes, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (I), Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (II), Goetheblog, Zeineku, VisualBlog, Fukkle Bim Jerry).
The video-affair and the bad-communication affair makes it apparent that the founders of StudiVZ have very bad personal advisors for their public appearances (see bdvb, Netzeitung, the strange company video featured at SevenLoad and Robert Basic or Darianis old blog, see also Notizblog and Blogdoch on how the makers of StudiVZ are trying to cleanup their private history in the web).
Ways out of the crisis:
- Disclose your income sources and your corporate structure
- Interact more with your high-profile users
- Allow business modells using StudiVZ
- Use the best technologies available
- Make StudiVZ a meta network
- Encourage copy-cats
- Bring back the old start-up feeling
The first and foremost aim should be to bring an end to speculation about the finances and investment relations of StudiVz. Sooner or later, any relations will be discovered anyway, until then the speculation hurts the company more than necessary! It is not necessary to release every detail, but it should be made clear: Who is owning the company? Who is working for the company? How will the company delevop? Who will finance the further development of the company?
There are some users which have tried to be very active within StudiVZ, care for created groups, stir discussions – these users need to be identified and approached. Their value for the network is often underestimated, but these users could help to create better feedback on the usefulness of StudiVZ. This is a classic tool of a stakeholder dialogue used by any large company – StudiVZ should introduce it as well.
StudiVZ should especially focus on bloggers who are commenting on StudiVZ and are at the same time active in StudiVZ – establish personal contacts and support these bloggers in writing well-researched articles (no pseudo-ads) about StudiVZ. This would make it possible to avoid the risks to the business model described by Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Don Alphonso or Suedblog.
Certainly the best move would be to support a StudiVZ-Watchblog, as Andi has suggested here.
Already some bloggers describe how they used StudiVZ for their own business purposes (for instance Gerhard Schoolmann describes in his blog in various articles – here and here – how he and his staff are using StudiVZ for advertising his bar). Other business models only became succesful when they allowed other businesses to form some sort of symbiosis with them – for instance the PowerSellers on Ebay or the BookShops on Amazon.Com. But this is only possible if StudiVZ opens up to new ideas.
StudiVz was one of the first social networks in Germany which had the feature of Gruscheln (see for a definition Broedel, ffaabbiiaann, or gruscheln.net) – even though it was only another version of the Facebook “Poke”-feature. (BTW: Broedel discovered the Swiss meaning for Grüscheln: “to seek dishonest profit, to gain from trusted mone, to cheat when shuffling cards, to commit a fraud by mixing materials, to falsify goods through mixing, to falsify bills”.
The real added value came from the “Study Course”-Feature, which students could use to see which other students were in their classes because this allows a new form of online unversity. Although some bloggers criticize this already as stalking, these online exchanges about classes can be extremely productive.
Other features need to be implemented as well, such as the import of blogs or pictures from Flickr. It would be nice to generate links between various interesting applications, for instance if the public items of my Google Calendar could also appear on my StudiVZ profile or if the comments that people leave on StudiVZ would copy themselves automatically into the guest book my blog (which I don’t have yet, but just in case).
As I have written earlier, there are a large number of social networks out there. If I find somebody on OpenBC, I also want to know whether he is available in StudiVZ. The easiest way would be to create some kind of meta-social network that collects all your profiles from the various networks and connects them with the profiles of other people (this has already been partially implemented by phatcouch).
Also, if I find a contact on OpenBC, I can check how we would be connected if we were not connected directly. This is a useful tool to see how your own networks are structured.
Or it would be nice to see which of your friends are in your groups. Or it would be nice to adopt the useful Friend Quiz or the friends-feed from Fabeook (even though it has drawn some criticism from Facebook users).
I also want to be able to connect with the various other StudiVZ sites in other countries, such as in Poland (www.studentix.pl), Italy (www.studiln.it), Spain (www.estudiln.net), and France (www.studiqg.fr). A group within StudiVZ is trying to lobby for the same cause.
In general, StudiVZ needs to become more international and more open towards new ideas. Why not open the script so that other programmers can offer their own tools to StudiVZ users – this is what MySpace is doing very succesfully. The best option would be to strike a deal with Facebook (and maybe even with Myspace.de) and create a database that links more than one network.
The first copy-cat already exists – Penner VZ (described also in my article and mentioned at Dittes, Grebla, AtomTiger, Sherpa, Blogdoch, Sven and Dennis-sagt.). Further copy-cats should be encouraged and supported.
How about Sportler-VZ – for all sport players in the world. PoliticiansVZ – for all politicians in the world. DrugDealersVZ – for all drug dealers in the world (the last one is probably not a legal business model). Unemployed-VZ – although it seems that PennerVZ is already taken over by the German Government (see the comments of BlogDoch and PennerVZ)
StudiVZ used to be a real hype – a small student project that was carried by enthusiasm, and not by mistrust, blury communication and technological faults. At that time, coverage in the news (for instance here at Netzwelt) and in various blogs was very positive.
Today’s pseudo-coverage on websites like fazjob.net (article can be found here) is no alternative – it just shows that many online-journalists have forgotten the art of investigative journalism.
The idea of a StudiVZ Song award was great – and gave some new bands the possibility to reach a large audience. These ideas reflect what I meant with the Start-Up feeling.
Through a better, more structured and more focussed PR such a feeling could be created again. And again: learn from TakingITGlobal.org – a site that is running entirely on contributions by voluteers around the world.
November 5th, 2006 at 18:23
Ein kleines Missverständnis: Im Notizblog kritisiere ich gar nicht, ich halte nur ganz neutral eine IMHO interessante Beobachtung fest.
November 5th, 2006 at 18:34
Ich glaube, dass Missverständnis bezieht sich auf das Word “to criticize”: im Englischen benutze ich das Wort mit der Bedeutung “to comment” – aber mit der Bedeutung, dass man auf etwas hinweisen will. Im Deutschen klingt das eher nach einem negativen Meinungsurteil.
November 5th, 2006 at 18:58
[...] KStudiVZ – The glamour is fading (or a chronic on how lack of PR can ruin a good idea – Karsten Wenzlaff zum StudiVZ Von Sebastian unter gesehen and verschwörungstheoretisch. | var blogTool = “WordPress”; var blogURL = “http://blog.chaos-paderborn.de”; var blogTitle = “chaos@paderborn”; var postURL = “http://blog.chaos-paderborn.de/?p=109″; var postTitle = “Lesenswert”; var commentAuthorFieldName = “author”; var commentAuthorLoggedIn = false; var commentFormID = “commentform”; var commentTextFieldName = “comment”; var commentButtonName = “submit”; [...]
November 5th, 2006 at 20:39
“This would make it possible to avoid the risks to the business model described by Jörg-Olaf Schäfer or Don Alphonso.”
2late.
November 5th, 2006 at 23:26
Mächtige Zusammenfassung und gute Verbesserungsvorschläge.
Bleibt zu hoffen, dass sich das StudiVZ-Team etwas davon zu Herzen nimmt.
November 6th, 2006 at 00:31
Sehr gute Zusammenfassung der Kritik und Probleme.
Die Lösungsansätze gehen leider sehr schnell in eine Ideenliste über die wiederum vielen Themen betrifft die schon an anderen Stellen diskutiert werden (Stichwort OpenID, Offenheit von Open BC etc…)
Danke!
November 6th, 2006 at 00:54
[...] Wer etwas über den Character eines/des Gründers (Ehssan Dariani) erfahren möchte, der schaue sich doch am besten einmal das folgende Video an. Passt auch sehr zu dem Verhalten (Zensur etc.), was er in seinem Blog an den Tag legt. Was mich ja auch schon immer gestört hat, ist die fehlende Klarheit bei der Finanzierung. Dazu passt der folgende Artikel ganz gut. Nett ist auch wie weit die Macher beim Kopieren von der amerikanischen Variante facbook.com gegangen sind. Nicht nur gleichen sich die Funktionen wohl sehr, sondern auch die Grafiken tragen teilweise den gleichen Namen und auf dem studiverzeichnis-Server zeigt sich bei Fehlern einen Ordner mit dem Namen “facebook”. Eine gute Zusammenfassung zu dem Thema bietet der folgende Beitrag. Sehr nett ist auch das “pennervz.de“. Und damit die Kritik auch ein bisschen fundiert ist, noch ein Artikel der Süddeutschen Zeitung und des Spiegel. « More nature and more People! [...]
November 6th, 2006 at 04:00
“StudiVZ and Samwer brothers: StudiVZ is already supported financially by the Samwer brothers with about 5000 Euros.”
Sorry, aber das ist falsch. 5.000 Euro kamen von Lukasz und weitere 5.000 Euro von einem anderen Spreadshirt-Mann. Die Samwers beteiligen sich nicht unter 500.000 Euro. Chronologisch war es höchstwahrscheinlich so: Eine FamilyFriends&Fools Finanzierung mit einem Dutzend kleiner Gesellschafter, die am 31.10.2005 zur Gründung der englischen Limited (sagen wir mal, Briefkastenfirma) führte. Formaler Start war in Deutschland der Eintrag ins Handelsregister im April 2005. Noch davor stiegen die Samwers ein, soweit ich weiss ist der hauptbetreuer Marc Samwer, und das Geld hat bislang gereicht. Im August hatten sie 25 Mitarbeiter und seitdem eine Burn Rate von mutmasslich zwischen 60 und 100.000 Euro im Monat.
Dass StudiVZ nicht offen kommuniziert, dass sie bis zum Einstieg von Holtzbrinck durch die Samwers finanziert wurden, ist selbstverständlich – das hätte der Legende von den Studenten Abbruch getan. Aber schon die erste Pressemitteilung nannte Tilo Bonow als Pressesprecher – ein Samwermann. Mindestzielgrösse der Marktkapitalisierung für einen Samwereinstig sind 100 Millionen Euro.
November 6th, 2006 at 07:05
Die Demontage des Ehssan Dariani, Studivz…
Heute morgen war ich unsicher. Unsicher, was ich von Peter Turis Blogeintrag über Ehssan Darianis – nicht unwidersproche……
November 6th, 2006 at 16:32
Eine sehr gelungene und meiner Meinung nach angemessene Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema!
November 6th, 2006 at 17:16
[...] StudiVZ – The glamor is fading (or a chronic on how lack of PR can ruin a good idea) [...]
November 6th, 2006 at 17:22
[...] Am Rande: Pennister.at und PennerLounge.co.uk registriert Pennister.at und PennerLounge.co.uk sind auf uns registriert? Euer Rudi Ratlos [...]
November 6th, 2006 at 20:55
Don: Im “studiVZ-Faktenblatt” von Anfang Oktober (Created & Modified 08.10.2006), das es im Pressebereich gibt, wird die Mitarbeiterzahl bereits mit “über 50″ angegeben. SpOn und Turi schrieben iirc irgendwas von 30 dabei wohl voneinander ab. Wieviele davon un- oder geringbezahlte Praktikanten sind, steht freilich nirgends. Auf der anderen Seite sucht man u.a. bei OpenBC und via Blog nach Vollzeit-Codern und Datenbank-Experten.
Kasi: Oben ist noch ein kleiner Fehler drin. Ich bezog mich bei MyVideo auf die Finanzierung durch die Samwer-Brüder, über die inzwischen auch der Focus/Heise berichtet haben. Ist iirc auch inkl. Exit-Spekulation verlinkt. Privat veröffentlichte E. Dariani seine Videos bisher ja bei YouTube …
Achja, ich heiße Schäfers, mit “s” am Ende ,)
November 6th, 2006 at 22:27
Gute Zusammenfassung mit ein paar Flüchtigkeitsfehlern: Die 5000 € hat Don Alphonso schon korrigiert, abgesehen von Lukasz mit “z” und Spread- statt Sweatshirt
ist da noch das hier:
“StudiVZ and MyVideo.de: Medienrauschen claims that MyVideo.de and StudiVZ have the same financing institution: ProSiebenSat1MediaGroup.”
Nein, damit ist nicht Pro7Sat1, sondern sind die Samwer-Brüder gemeint.
November 7th, 2006 at 10:20
StudiVZ: Die Konkurrenz um eine Breitseite anbetteln…
Disclaimer: Soweit ich erkennen kann, erzähle ich keinem der Konkurrenten von StudiVZ irgendwas, was sie nicht eh schon wissen.
Das unter massive Kritik geratene Startup StudiVZ (die Liste der Verfehlungen vom Domaingrabbing bis Klofilming hier) ist g…
November 9th, 2006 at 13:51
Guter Artikel, hatte ja auch was darüber geschrieben. Ich frage mich teilweise nur, inwiefern dieser Artikel für das eventuelle englischsprachige Publikum interessant ist, die nutzen tendenziell ja eher nicht studiVZ… Aber so wie studiVZ expandiert, ist das vielleicht nur noch eine Frage der Zeit.
November 10th, 2006 at 19:19
[...] Knackpunkte gibt, die es zu meistern gilt, damit das Netzwerk schön gedeiht. Trackback-URL Gelesen: 1 heute:1 [...]
November 10th, 2006 at 19:46
[...] und eine wunderbare Zusammenfassung der Entwicklung mit und um StudiVZ gibt es bei Karsten Wenzlaff [...]
November 10th, 2006 at 20:55
StudiVZ for runaways: “The glamour is fading”…
Eine ausführliche Zusammenfassung der Gruschel-Soap in englischer Sprache gibt es drüben im Kasi-Blog.
Interessant sind ein paar Anmerkungen von DonAlphonso* in den Kommentaren:
Die Samwers beteiligen sich nicht unter 500.000 Euro. […] …
November 10th, 2006 at 23:49
[...] Inzwischen hat es StudiVZ auf Platz 1 bei den Technorati Suchbegriffen geschafft. Nicht schlecht, da bewegt sich mal wieder eine riesige Welle durch die Blogosphäre (mehr Infos von mir dazu hier). Zu recht, wie ich meine … Gerne verweise ich auch noch auf einen Beitrag von DonAlphonso zu dem Thema in Blogbar. Update: Eine schöne englischsprachige Zusammenfassung zu den Geschehnissen um StudiVZ gibt es auf dem Kasi-Blog. Tags: Domaingrabbing, Samwer, StudiVZ Hallo liebe StudiVZ’ler Von media-mirror Reaktionen auf diesen Beitrag via RSS 2.0 Bitte kommentieren Sie oder diskutieren via Trackback weiter! [...]
November 11th, 2006 at 00:14
[...] Auf Blogs! gibt’s eine nette Abrechnung mit unser aller StudiVZ. Besonders übel ist der Link zum Chef, der Frauen in der U-Bahn abfilmt. Ansonsten geht’s um ein eher ungeschicktes virales Marketing bei jetzt.de durch StudiVZ und noch so einige andere dicke Brocken. Überhaupt hat sich Blogs! in den letzten Tagen fast täglich mit StudiVZ beschäftigt, auf dessen Startseite dazu noch einiges mehr. Und den ultimativen Überblick zu den Verfehlungen vom StudiVZ gibt’s beim Kasi-Blog. [...]
November 11th, 2006 at 03:14
[...] Recently a number of bloggers have commented and linked to my article on StudiVZ (see Chaos@Paderborn, Schnitzler, Blogdoch David Warlick, Customer of Hell, Robert Basic, Don Alphonso.Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, MyMediaMirror, Fimpern, Gastronomie Blog, Visual Blog). Thanks for all the positive and constructive comments! I have revised updated my article and clarified some of the wording. [...]
November 11th, 2006 at 21:10
[...] Nachtrag: Der Platz 1 ist wohl leicht negativ behaftet Selbst in der englischsprachigen Blogosphere wird viel über das StudiVZ geschrieben, vieles auch zu den, von mir schon früher erwähnten Ähnlichkeiten zum Facebook (wo ich übrigens auch angemeldet bin), wie z.B. gleich benannte divs und css-Files, etc. Einen sehr ausführlichen Artikel dazu gibt es hier. [...]
November 11th, 2006 at 22:13
[...] StudiVZ has crossed the one-million-user threshold – a great day of joy for Jamba, Samwer, Holtzbrinck. [...]
November 12th, 2006 at 10:43
http://www.studivz.net/blog/?p=67
“Nach wie vor stehen natürlich die Gruppen im VZ jedem für seine Meinung, Kritik, Lob, Spekulation etc. offen.”
Das klingt in der “Hilfe” zum studiVZ aber deutlich anders:
“Folgende Gruppen aktzeptieren wir nicht:
Gruppen, die Kritik am StudiVZ ausüben”
Ein jeder denke sich seinen Teil.
November 12th, 2006 at 10:45
In der Zwischenzeit sei ein(e) jede(r) herzlich eingeladen, meiner Gruppe “Sägt E. D. ab!” beizutreten
November 12th, 2006 at 15:01
[...] Für viele Blogger steht fest: Die Scripte für die StudiVZ-Seiten sind vom US-Studenten-Portal Facebook geklaut. Unfehlbar, Kasi und viele weitere haben die Seiten genau verglichen, Bumi zeigt, wie sich jeder StudiVZ im Facebook-Look auf den Bildschirm holen kann, Oliver Thylmann hat Screenshots von StudiVZ-Fehlermeldungen, die einen Quelltext von Facebook.com zeigen. Und selber vergleichen kann jeder beim Spiegel (Bilder 3 und 5). [...]
November 12th, 2006 at 21:44
[...] What does that mean? Are they expanding into the USA? Have they not researched the meaning of the picture? Or have they simply copied the picture from the internet – just like they did with Facebook? [...]
November 12th, 2006 at 22:49
StudiVZ-Mitarbeiter fälscht Wikipedia…
English Summary: A person with strong ties to the founders of the infamous German startup StudiVZ – a Facebook-Clone – tried to delete critical remarks from the Wikipedia article about the company.
Es gibt Leute, die finden, dass man den Gründer von …
November 12th, 2006 at 22:56
[...] Karsten Wenzlaff has written an in-depth article on StudiVZ.de, the largest German social networking site for college students with an alleged 1M users, that covers a lot of the recent criticisms regarding both the founder’s as well as the company’s behavior and communications: StudiVZ – The glamour is fading (or a chronic on how lack of PR can ruin a good idea) [...]
November 13th, 2006 at 01:15
[...] Kommentar hinzufügen » | Related Link | 0 Trackbacks | ( 3.3 / 4 ) | Top Studivz hype explained for Technorati-Users (0) Freitag, November 10, 2006, 19:45 – Blase2.0 As the recent interesst in British Company Studivz Ltd., which is, upto now at least, run by three students (employing roughly 50 people) currently leads to "Studivz" being No. 1 phrase in Technorati searches, lots of people start wondering what all this German (definitely not Dutch
) babbling is about.To put it in a nutshell, one student named Ehssan Dariani saw facebook during his intern at spreadshirt in the US, saw it's potential for the german and european market and founded Studivz Ltd. with another student and some external money; there are hints that his copycat, Studivz is indeed at least at the CSS level copied from facebook. Others claim this is purely by chance, since both used the same book on website design during development …Recently, Studivz won the "Online Star 2006", despite the fact that there are massive problems with site stability for several months now. See article on SPIEGEL online, Dariani blames the hoster for that, who in turn rejects that and claims that the software isn't as capable as neccessary. Later on, Dariani reveals in the official Blog of Studivz that the software, written one year ago for some hundred concurrent users, does not cope well with several thousand concurrent users using the site today. (English translation via Google available.)Dariani publishes strange Interviews on the Studivz company blog, the other company founders were found already to have grabbed domains of competitors and lately there was some fuzz about Dariani being the domain holder of voelkischerbeobachter.de and voelkischer-beobachter.de; currently redirecting somewhere else, these domains were allegedly used to invite to a Studivz-Party on 2006-07-15.While currently the original content is not available in full, parts of it are leaking out. While Dariani claimed satirical intentions before, those site(s) seem to have shown something resembling the "Völkischer Beobachter"; see en.wikipedia.org or de.wikipedia.org … The image, when enlarged, features in the middle something resembling the logo of Studivz, as can be seen by overlaying the enlarged image with a 5% upscaled current logo. Still, it's unclear whether this is a bad joke on Dariani/Studivz or if it's one made by him.More on karsten-wenzlaff.de/, pulse2.0, fimpern.de; German summaries at Customer of Hell and current issues at Rebellmarkt.An not up-to-date article on Studivz in English from MSNBC is available as well. [...]
November 13th, 2006 at 12:27
[...] Zusammengefasst findet man die meisten Verfehlungen von StudiVZ oder den Mitarbeitern auch hier: http://www.karsten-wenzlaff.de/?p=90. [...]
November 14th, 2006 at 01:06
[...] Viel Lärm um Nichts00:05 Uhr in Kommentar | Wer derzeit Besucher auf seinen Blog lockenwill, der schreibt am Besten einen Eintrag über StudiVZ. Derzeit gibt es in der Blogspähre wohl kein unbeliebteres Unternehmen, als das Studierverzeichnis. Die Blogger überschlagen sich mit Gerüchten, Anklagen und Beschuldigungen und auch die etablierten Medien entdecken das Thema für sich. Auf der anderen Seite freut sich StudiVZ über die Publicity, der Name des StartUps ist in aller Munde. [...]
November 14th, 2006 at 01:39
[...] Zu meinem Glühwein Markt Spam habe ich noch ein paar Links gefunden (via). Ich habe die Ahnung, dass es bestimmt nicht das letzte Mal war. Vielleicht hat Marcel auch daher die Idee gehabt. [...]
November 14th, 2006 at 03:29
[...] Wäre doch schade, wenn niemand erfährt, dass das StudiVZ gar kein Risikokapital finanziertes Startup ist, in dem Mitarbeiter auf engsten Raum ohne Rücksicht auf die Bildschirmarbeitsverordnung zusammenhocken, sondern eine supi-harmonische Mitte-WG mit voll crazy Studis und Netzanschluß. [...]
November 14th, 2006 at 12:25
[...] StudiVZ – The glamour is fading [...]
November 14th, 2006 at 15:44
[...] Sehr gute Chronik der Ereignisse [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 12:09
[...] Meinen Account bei StudiVZ habe ich gelöscht. Der Grund sind die neusten Erkenntnisse von DonAlphonso über StudiVZ. Es sind längst nicht mehr nur ein paar Peinlichkeiten des StudiVZ Gründers Ehssan Dariani, sondern ein Skandal. Vielleicht ist es die erste deutsche Web 2.0 Blase, die auf diese Art zerplatzt – den Verkaufspreis von StudiVZ wird es sicherlich beeinflussen. [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 13:55
[...] This is a summary of articles and blogs related to StudiVZ. Previously I have written various articles on StudiVZ on the following topics: StudiVZ and TakingITGlobal.org, Facebook, Unister and StudiVZ, 100 blonde friends on StudiVZ, StudiVZ and PennerVZ, StudiVZ – the glamour is fading (Previous Summary), The most famous quote on StudiVZ, Revised Summary of StudiVZ – The Case of a Watchblog, A million data sets and ways to break up with StudiVZ, StudiVZ and StudiGQ – French-German hostilities, Is StudiVZ/StudiGQ expanding into the USA, A Message from Planet StudiVZ [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 21:58
[...] Hier weist Robert auf eine Aufstellung der bis zum Erscheinungsdatum des Beitrags in der Blogosphäre besprochenen Artikel. Diese findet man hier, auf dem Kasi-Blog. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 03:19
[...] Lest euch die Berichterstattung an der Blogbar durch, lest die diversen anderen Berichte und Infos in der Blogosphäre – Technorati, so seltsam der Dienst auch ist, hilft da beim Aufstöbern und überlegt euch ERNSTHAFT ob ihr bei solchen Leuten, die zwar hoch und heilig versprechen eure Daten zu schützen, jetzt aber offenbar nicht davor zurückscheuen werden, obs zum Verkauf kommt ist ja dann schon fraglich und diese Expansion nach Polen und Frankreich, hmm, diese, eure! Daten komplett an Facebook zu verkaufen die wer weiß was damit anstellen werden – ob ihr da noch Mitglied sein wollt. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 12:52
[...] Basic Thinking Basic Thinking PR Blogger Jeriko One Spiegel Online StudiVZ Blog Werbeblogger Spreeblick BlogBar Kasi-Blog [...]
November 24th, 2006 at 19:42
Markus…
It was quite useful reading, found some interesting details about this topic. Thanks….
November 29th, 2006 at 01:15
[...] Für viele Blogger steht fest: Die Scripte für die StudiVZ-Seiten sind vom US-Studenten-Portal Facebook geklaut. Unfehlbar, Kasi und viele weitere haben die Seiten genau verglichen, Bumi zeigt, wie sich jeder StudiVZ im Facebook-Look auf den Bildschirm holen kann, Oliver Thylmann hat Screenshots von StudiVZ-Fehlermeldungen, die einen Quelltext von Facebook.com zeigen. Und selber vergleichen kann jeder beim Spiegel (Bilder 3 und 5). [...]
Dezember 11th, 2006 at 20:46
[...] StudiVZ – the glamour is fading (Kasi-Blog) [...]
Dezember 29th, 2006 at 18:18
[...] Nachdem ich ja jetzt zu Hause bin, werde ich mir erlauben auch über andere Dinge als meinen Dublinaufenthalt zu bloggen. Da gibt es ja dieses StudiVZ, das bei Studenten mittlerweile sehr beliebt ist, das aber auch vor ein paar Wochen sehr im Kreuzfeuer der Kritik der Blogsphäre aufgrund von Aktionen der Gründer(Völkischer Beobachter, Klovideos (http://www.karsten-wenzlaff.de/?p=90), usw.) und etlichen Sicherheitslücken. Eben jene Sicherheitslücken hat ein Student mit dem Pseudonym Hagen ausgenutzt, um die Daten von allen Profilen auszulesen und darauf statistische Auswertungen zu fahren. Das Auslesen dürfte so schwer nicht gewesen sein, schließlich gab es zu diesem Zeitpunkt (9. Dezember) nach meinem Wissen, keine Vorkehrungen wie das jetzt eingeführte Capatcha, das man nach dem Aufrufen von 50 Profilen entziffern und richtig eingeben muss. Jedenfalls hat Hagen sehr interessante Statistiken über die Benutzer des StudiVZ zusammengetragen und diese öffentlich verfügbar gemacht. Wer also wissen möchte, wie es um die politische Einstellung von StudiVZ Nutzern am 9. Dezember 2006 stand, der soll sich durch die Statistiken wühlen. Diese Seite sollte aber auch Benutzer von StudiVZ aufrütteln darüber nachzudenken, ob man wirklich alle seine privaten Daten auf einer (halb-) öffentlichen Seite angeben muss. Man muss sich nur vorstellen, welche Auswertungen erst am Backend der Datenbank möglich sind. Wer jetzt widerspricht und sagt: “Ich habe ja nichts zu verbergen”, sollte sich diesen Artikel in der Blogbar durchlesen. [...]
März 9th, 2007 at 23:06
[...] fest: Die Scripte für die StudiVZ-Seiten sind vom US-Studenten-Portal Facebook geklaut. Unfehlbar, Kasi und viele weitere haben die Seiten genau verglichen, Bumi zeigt, wie sich jeder StudiVZ im [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 18:42
[...] has crossed the one-million-user threshold – a great day of joy for Jamba, Samwer, [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 21:15
[...] Project StudiVZ is apparently not capable of integrating the databases – despite all the corporate money that has flown into [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 21:43
[...] a number of bloggers have commented and linked to my article on StudiVZ (see Chaos@Paderborn, Schnitzler, Blogdoch David Warlick, Customer of Hell, Robert [...]
Dezember 15th, 2007 at 03:35
The World is watching…
Im Zuge der aktuellen StudiVZ AGB und Datenschutz Diskussion hat mich mal wieder das Unbehagen gepackt, was denn so alles über meine Person im Netz zu finden ist.
Die direkte Suche nach meinem Namen in Anführungszeichen bei Google ergab dabei…
Juni 28th, 2008 at 22:55
Hallo Ihr lieben,
habe da eine gute Alternative zum StudiVZ gefunden, sind aber irgendwie super viele aus Brasilien drin:
http://www.stuxum.de
Viel Spass
Nat
Juli 19th, 2008 at 19:11
[...] Vorwürfe sind nicht neu, bereits 2006 wurde über die Ähnlichkeiten berichtet. Wahrscheinlich war die Ähnlichkeit sogar beabsichtigt, aber [...]
Juli 21st, 2008 at 07:30
[...] die sich das „VZ“ auf die Seite geschrieben hatten. Merke: Was eilig abgeschaut wurde, kommt nicht so schnell zur Ruhe. StudiVZ will sich übrigens rechtlich gegen Zuckerbergs Attacke wehren. [...]
Februar 21st, 2009 at 13:30
Die Vorwürfe sind länsgt nicht mehr neu! Wie empuls schon richtig sagt war bereits 2006 über die Ähnlichkeiten berichtet worden. Schon da hatte ich mich gefragt wieso zur hölle (entschukdigung) sich keiner für einen diskurs interessiert hat. Muss wohl erst kochen und weh tuen bis ein Aufschrei durch die Geselschaftschicht geht die es betrifft
Gruß
Februar 21st, 2009 at 18:48
[...] die Daten des internationalen StudiVZ (9.11.06) Ungereimtheiten in der Geschäftsführung (7.11.06) Kommentar eines gewissen ‘Don Alphonso’ (vom 6.11.06) seltsame Blogeinträge [...]
Juni 10th, 2009 at 23:09
[...] fallen immer wieder welche damit auf die Nase. Aktueller Kandidat: StudiVZ-Gründer Ehssan Dariani (ja, der mit den lustigen(?) Anmach- und Klo-Videos, den gefälschten [...]