StudiVZ Encyclopedia – the most complete summary (until now)
This is a summary of articles and blogs related to StudiVZ.
Introduction
StudiVZ is a German-based social-network platform for university students. According to their website, it was started in October 2005 by three German students: Ehssan Dariani, Michael Brehm, Dennis Bemman (registration is needed). ‘StudiVZ’ is the German abbreviation for StudiVerzeichnis.
For an overview of the history and diversity of social networks see Yasns or Wikipedia.
- Reach
According to the StudiVZ blog, 1 million users are now using StudiVZ – compared to 60.000 in June 2006 or 800.000 in October 2006 (see StudiVZ, Robert Basic, Dittes (I), Dittes (II)).
They have by far surpassed their competitors such as Unister.de (see AlexaRadar, Ice-Blog, Dittes (III), see statistics on Alexa for a comparison of these two companies).With innovative ideas, such as the StudiVZ Song award they are increasingly receiving more attention from students.
StudiVZ has expaned into other countries by setting up parallel social networks in Poland (www.studentix.pl), Italy (www.studiln.it), Spain (www.estudiln.net), and France (www.studiqg.fr).
The expansion of StudiVZ has attracted quite a large amount of media attention (see MSNBC,Netzwelt, fazjob, WAZ, Süddeutsche, New York Times, ITNewsByte, Manager-Magazin, Spiegel (I), Spiegel (II), Frankfurter Rundschau, Berliner Kurier, Berliner Umschau, Schweizer Pressetext) and attention by bloggers (see Technorati, GoogleBlogSearch).
StudiVZ is also discussed at Wikipedia in German, English and Italian.
- Financing
StudiVZ does not charge a fee to the users and has barely any advertisement. So far only the new single by German Band Juli and an subscription to the German newspaper Die Zeit was advertised.
StudiVZ has only partially disclosed its financial structure. StudiVZ formally has the status of a British Limited Organisation but is registered in Berlin.
According to their blog, the following individuals or companies have invested into StudiVZ: Aaron Voloj Dessauer, Christian Vollmann, Christophe Maire, Dario Suter, European Founders Fund GmbH (Marc, Oliver und Alexander Samwer – see more details below), Holtzbrinck Ventures GmbH (see more details below), Kolja Hebenstreit, Lukasz Gadowski, Matthias Spieß (see more details below), Oliver Jung, Peter Schüpbach.
The commercial investors (such as Lukasz Gadowski, the Samwer brothers and Holtzbrinck) are discussed in detail below. All other investors come from the circle of friends of the founders.
StudiVZ claims that all investors together invested about 2.5 million Euro, with 2 million Euros coming from Holtzbrinck. However, there are a large number of speculations on the Finances of StudiVZ and many bloggers doubt this figure.
- Access
Users sign up via Internet, they provide an email-adress and identify which university they attend. Since there is no control if these users are really attending the claimed universities, StudiVZ has no possibility to restrict the access of other non-university users (such as School Students, Former Students, Trainees and Interns).
Once students have signed up, they can upload their profile, upload pictures and “photo-tag” them (indicating which other uses can be seen on the picture), they can identify their university classes, they can join groups of common interest, they can send messages to each other, leave messages on the guest book of other users or “gruschel” other users – which is basically like saying a short “Hello” to another person.
- Communication
StudiVZ communicates via their blog or via Interviews. Tilo Bonow (according to his website journalist, moderator and media counselor) coordinates their press activities. “StudiVZ-Facts” with some informations are provided by company, Press Articles have not been released between June 2006 and November 2006, and only recently after enormous pressure by bloggers and media, press releases have started again. A recent press release highlights the 1 million users and the 200.000 discussion groups.
- Staff
As can be seen on a video released by StudiVZ, between 50 to 60 people work at StudiVZ. A large portion is working in the Marketing Department which coordinates the activities of the Campus-Captains. Campus Captains are StudiVZ users which advertise for StudiVZ by giving away T-Shirts and Stickers.
Other departments are the Support Department and the IT-Department.
StudiVZ has people working for them in the various European countries and software programmers in Ukraine.
Critique
Even though the critique is only slowly reaching main-stream media, it is clear that no community based on communication can be non-responsive to the critique of the Blog-o-sphere. Competitors such as Unister.de have become almost irrelevant after heavy criticism from bloggers (for a history see for instance Robert Basic).
The following compilation of issues intends to give a more or less precise overview of the rumours, critique and speculations that can be found in the blog-o-sphere. Necessarily enough, contradictions exist, some claims are only partially substantiated and not all sources can be named.
- Technical Issues
- Copycat
StudiVZ looks remarkably like an American-based social network called Facebook. The design is very similar, the order of the menu is 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 copied. The feature “Gruscheln” is a copy of the Facebook feature “Poke”.
The issue is discussed in both communities (see the discussion group at StudiVZ and at Facebook). A large number of bloggers have commented negatively on this issue (see Unfehlbar, Bumi, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Blogpiloten, Oliver Thylmann, Sichelputzer, Sebbi, ManiacMind, Alltagskakophonie , Robert Basic (I), Robert Basic (II), Sebastian Görres, Betalog, Andi, Poolie, ComputerMag, Die Wohnung). Pictures of Screenshots can be found at Flickr.
German newspapers have covered the issue as well (see Der Spiegel, Der Spiegel-Pictures). A recent article discussing German Web 2.0 startups and their American copy-counterpart features StudiVZ quite prominently (see VisualBlog).
The following arguments are given by the blog-o-sphere for the claim that StudiVZ was simply copied from Facebook:
It is possible to change StudiVZ into the design of Facebook by using a script that can be found at Bumi.
“Gruscheln” used to be called “poke” in the internal program code”
The folder in which StudiVZ showed program errors was called “Fakebook”
Data leaks recently discovered in StudiVZ and Facebook have the same structure. In both communities it is fairly simply to retrieve the uploaded pictures of users (see details below see my this recent article, see Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (I),Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (II) Don Alphonso (I) Don Alphonso (II), see the response of StudiVZ here)
Apparently, these similarities do not produce a legal problem. Facebook is not planning to sue StudiVZ and pictures of the StudiVZ founders together with the Facebook founders exist. All these have increase the rumour about a sale to Facebook (see for details below).
StudiVZ has reluctantly admitted that the design was partially copied. However they base their defense on three points (and are supported by some bloggers on this issue):
Firstly, the design of Facebook was not a new development, but also a modification of an earlier social-network. The German Wikipedia entry refers to a book by Rachel Andrew “The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential – Tips, Tricks & Hacks” which probably has been an inspritation for both social networks.
Secondly, the real challenge was the set-up of the data-bases (see Comment on Medienrauschen or StudiVZ developer Dennis Bemman defending his own programming work at Reader’s Edition).
Thirdly, other sites have also copied Facebook (such as unister.de, xianoei.Com or phatcouch.com) and StudiVZ has only copyied a standard business model used by social network (see Dittes, Mashable (I), Mashable (II), EveryDigg, IfYouCanDreamIt, Gründerszene).
StudiVZ has also a direct copycat meant as a persiflage: PennerVZ. “Penner” is German for” homeless person”. PennerVZ is thus a network of homeless persons and it has received attention by bloggers, but also by advertising companies (see my article and Dittes, Grebla, AtomTiger, Sherpa, Blogdoch (I),BlogDoch (II), Sven, Dennis-sagt, Daburna, Robert Basic see the blogs by Penner VZ here, here, and here, see the interview with PennerVZ here).
- Bad Perfomance
For the last months, StudiVZ is very slow and often shows error messages. It is often impossible to log in, difficult to access groups and pages do not reload even after refreshing them in the browser (see Alltagskakophonie, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Beetlebum, Dittes, CustomerOfHell(I), CustomerOfHell(II), Blogdoch, Schnitzler).
The other websites of StudiVZ in other coutries are also experiencing traffic problems (see for instance France:VisualBlog or their own blog at StudiGQ).
StudiVZ has reacted to these critique in various ways:
Firstly, they have claimed that the large number of new users was not expected. The two large problems are capacity and scaling. They are now working on implementing AJAX tools to shorten the download time for the various pages and they have switched-off various features that have caused a lot of traffic, such as the “Do you know?”-feature (which showed three unknown user profiles when signing up to StudiVZ) and the Super-Search (which allowed a random combination of search tools) (see StudiVZ-Blog
Secondly, StudiVZ is blaming their telephone company and their hardware (see their blog here, here, here, here and here).After receiving new hardware recently they and are working on the configuration
Thirdly, they recommended to use the tab function of Mozilla Firefox to load several pages at once. This is however criticized by bloggers for causing even more traffic (see Sichelputzer and Koosishart).
Many bloggers point out that there are other options available for keeping a site running – even through maintenance. They also criticise the communication regarding the maintenance (see Sichelputzer (I), Sichelputzer (II), Dittes (I), Dittes (II)).
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.
- Features
StudiVZ does not allow any links to other sites, messages can not be accessed via POp3/SMTP, it is not possible to create public groups which can be seen outside of StudiVZ, it is not possible to connect your own profile to other StudiVZ clones, it is not possible to integrate blog-feeds or flicker-pictures or youtube-videos into StudiVZ.
The StudiVZ team only reluctantly responded to suggestions by user to modify StudiVZ and they pointed towards the heavy workload (see GoetheBlog, A to Z of World, my article on StudiVZ and blogs, the comment on StudiVZ and Flickr).
- Financing
How does StudiVZ pay its staff and its infrastructure? The public image of being a small independent student project is hard to believe, even though some users of StudiVZ even want to donate their own money or their universities’ money to StudiVZ (see Comment at StudiVZ, Comment of Dariani at Reader’s Edition).
Apparently StudiVZ costs about 60.000 to 100.000 Euros per month which is probably dificult to be financed by donations (see Don Alphonso). The figure of 2.5 million Euros given by StudiVZ is therefore heavily debated in the blog-o-sphere.
- Spreadshirt
The original seed capital (about 5.000 Euros each) probably came from Lukasz Gadowski (see Lakattack, see his StudiVZ profile) and Matthias C. Spiess, founders and CEO’s of Spreadshirt.net. StudiVZ founder Ehssan Dariani worked there as an intern. Besides money, they also invested knowledge and time (see also Süddeutsche Zeitung and the blog of Lukasz Gadowski at Gruenderszene).
- Samwer
The Samwer brothers invested something around 500.000 Euros – earlier comments by bloggers pointed at a higer sum (see comment by Don Alphonso). The Samwer brothers have created (and sold) the mobile phone company “Jamba!”. In the blog-o-sphere, they have a bad reputation – not only for their products but also how they treat their eimployees (see article in Tagesspiegel, Golem, Spreeblick, Sichelputzer).
- Holtzbrinck
The latest investor is Holtzbrinck Venture Capital, a company that belongs to the German publishing house Holtzbrinck. On their webpage, Martin Weber from Holtzbrinck is mentioned as being a member of board of truestees of StudiVZ (see Blogdoch). Holtzbrinck Venture Capital is involved since August 2006 with about 2 million Euros.
According to Peter Turi, Holtzbrinck has already invested 10 million Euros, according to other sources the invested capital is considerable higher (up to 12 million Euros). However this sum is strongly and repeatedly denied by the founders of StudiVZ (see article in the StudiVZ blog).
StudiVZ is using the facilities of Parship, a Holtzbrinck daugther, for their European spin-offs. In their blog they have claimed that no further relations exist to their investors. Some bloggers have claimed that this resembles much what is called kick-backing (see Blogbar and the comment by Don Alphonso for more details).
- Sale
Some bloggers also discuss whether StudiVZ is likely to be bought up by another company in the future. Concretely Facebook is mentioned as potential buyer (see Ice Blog (I), Ice Blog (II), Rebellmarkt, Customer of Hell). In that case the ownership structure determines how much the investors get back.
My own personal speculation without having any confirmed sources for this: Gadowski and Spiess own each about 5 percent, the other friends of the founders each not more than one or two percents. The Samwer brothers and Holtzbrinck each about 10 to 15 percent. The remaining 50 percent probably belong to Dariani, Brehm and Bemman. If Holtzbrinck and Samwer have both invested about 2.5 million Euros and received 30 percent, the whole company must be worth at least 10 to 15 million Euros. Again, this is only speculation.
Facebook might get bought by Yahoo. Yahoo (with their Social Network Yahoo 360) or Google as a direct competitor of Yahoo (with their Social Network Orkut) are probably monitoring closely what is happening to StudiVZ.
- Reactions by StudiVZ
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 reacted to these accusations by first denying, then slowly identifying the relations between StudiVZ, Samwer, Sweatshirt and Holtzbrinck (see here, here and at Dariani’s comment at Reader’s Edition), but apparently not to the satisfaction of the blog-o-sphere. Unclear identification of ownership and corporate structure made it difficult not to speculate – even though quite a lot of facts are already known (see Blogbar (I), Blogbar (II)).
After the speculations and the public pressure to disclose the financial structure became over-whelming, StudiVZ disclosed all investors and explained their relations with them (see their blog. They have however not stated how much each investors owns in the company.
- Income
All investors expect a return of their investments. How will StudiVZ generate income, if it does not charge a fee for their services?
- GoogleAds
Quite early, bloggers and media rumoured that StudiVZ will use GoogleAds or any other forms of online advertisement (see jetzt.de, Netzeitung, the blogs of Azrael, i-jeriko, Don Alphonso and the comment by StudiVZ founder Michael Brehm).
Since prices on ads at social networks are increasing tremendously, such a move can generate a large sum of income, especially when linked to the profiles of users or certain discussion groups (see the article at TechCrunch, MarketWire via Basic Thinking (I) , Basic Thinking (II), Sebastian Görres and Mashable, see also Karmaweb for a discussion of these figures).
On the lighter side: some bloggers are suggesting that StudiVz is already making money by advertising for coffee through their error messages (see Haeby and my article on the most famous quote on StudiVZ).
- Traffic-Sharing
Most investors invest money only if a start-up fits into the portofolio of their company. Some bloggers claim that StudiVZ is already cooperating with other portals to generate and share traffic – and thus generate income through ads.
MyVideo.de is a good example: they hosted the StudiVZ Song Competition and belong officially to the ProSiebenSat1MediaGroup. However it is alleged that the above mentioned Samwer brothers are also involved in myvideo.de (see Focus, PCGo, Arno Klein, Azrael74 Gugelproductions, TheInquirer, Robert Basic, Medienrauschen, Blogdoch, Tjacobi and comment by Jörg-Olaf Schäfers).
- Licensing of Gruscheln(TM)
StudiVZ copied the idea of the poke-Feature from Facebook and translated it to Gruscheln. 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,see also der Gruschelwecker).
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”.Apparently StudiVZ tried to register the word as a German trademark. If the idea was to demand a fee from anybody who is using “Gruscheln” without permission, then it was not a productive one. Google had similar problems with the phrase “to google someone” since a trademark is difficult to claim if a word enters common language. Since “Gruscheln” exists in various dialects as well, it is unlikely that it can be used as a trademark (see Robert Basic).
- Reactions by StudiVZ
The founders of StudiVZ have at various stages spoken about their plans to use ads. They also said that in case of a change in the ownership structure, the data security is ensured (see below), which fuels speculation about a possible ownership swap with Facebook (see their entry at the StudiVZ blog)
- Business Strategy
- WHU Connection
StudiVZ was more succesful compared to other social networks like Lokalisten.de, Unister.de etc. because their founders were well-connected within the networks of elite-universities in Germany. According to some estimates, about 90 percent of the students at ivy-league universities (WHU, EBS etc) are members of StudiVZ. At ‘normal’ universities a far smaller percentage has signed up to StudiVZ. Apparently the tipping point was when more than 150 students per university had signed up (see Agenturblog and comment here)
- Censorship
Apparently some posts by StudiVZ users criticising StudiVZ have been deleted (see this Discussion Thread at StudiVZ, see Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (I), Simon-Martin, Tyrion, Don Alphonso, I-Jeriko, BlognRoll, h1rschgehege, Blogdoch, DieStimmederfreienWelt).
The Help-File of StudiVZ used to say: “We do not accept the following groups : Groups that criticize StudiVZ, Groups we don’t like. Groups for freedom of opinion and reception.”
Frequently they have also been criticised for censorship in their blog.
StudiVZ reacted by claiming that they do not have the personal capacity to watch StudiVZ discussions groups and the deletion of articles was a mistake. They have also opened their blog.
Some criticism focussed also on the issue that StudiVZ is not doing enough to monitor discussion groups with illegal or problematic content.
- Privacy
User data and its alleged missing protection by StudiVZ are one of the most discussed arguments by bloggers. How Data mining for commercial purposes (such as GoogleAds) and other mechanisms work can be found in this survey of “Facebook and Data Mining”.
Some bloggers criticize that the disclaimer of StudiVZ is no guarantee that the data can not be misused in case of a sale to Facebook or any other company (see Spiegel, StudiVZ Press Speaker in jetzt.de and the blogs by Helga Städtler, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers or the comments by Dr. Dean or Stefanolix(I), StefanOlix(II), see also the Federal Data Protection Law).
StudiVZ founder Ehssan Dariani commented the privacy issue at Reader’s Edition claiming that the users can decide about how much private data other users can see. However the issue that bloggers focus most on is that not the data other users can see, but the data that company can see use. According to StudiVZ founder Michael Brehm, not more than 10 people within StudiVZ have access to user data. According to their blog, they continue to guarantee the security of their user-data and have even identified a manager for data security.
However new accusations focus on the issue of images in StudiVZ. Apparently it is possible to retrieve the URL of all images in StudiVZ – even those marked as private by their users. Once the URLs are known, they can also be accessed by people who have not signed up. StudiVZ has reacted to these accusations by pointing to the diffulties in accessing the URLS, but the blog-o-sphere reacted to this defense by showing that it is fairly easy to conclude the URL of unkown pictures from existing URLS.
- Expansion and unfair behavior towards competitors
As mentioned above, StudiVZ has already expanded into four other countries. Despite the fact that StudiVZ does not plan to expand into Austria or the UK (since Austrian and Swiss Students are using StudiVZ as well, and British Students are using Facebook), StudiVZ has registered the domains for their competitors in UK and Austria (such as Unister.at or studylounge.co.uk). Many bloggers see the usage of competitor’s domaines as illegal and bad company behavior – even though it is apparently wide-spread (see unfehlbar.net, Robert Basic, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Sichelputzer, Blogdoch, Dittes).
StudiVZ founder Michael Brehms apologized at Jörg-Olaf Schäfers blog and at Robert Basics’s blog, which drew new comments from bloggers (see Notizblog and this comment).
Some bloggers have also mentioned the fact that StudiVZ and its clones are incompatible and with studiVZ a group lobbying for the same cause can be found (see StudiVZ-Group)
- Communication
- Bad Corporate Communication
Even though StudiVZ has its own blog, they have only recently started to systematically organize public support for their website. Their communication is often criticized for being insufficent and their reactions to critique is inappropriate (see for instance this blog-entry of StudiVZ, see bdvb, Netzeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Spiegel Online, Medienhandbuch (I), Medienhandbuch (II) see also the company video featured at SevenLoad, Robert Basic , Darianis old blog, or the comments by Sichelputzer, Robert Basic (I), Robert Basic (II), Robert Basic (III), Sherpa, Visual Blog, Blognroll, BlogDoch, Fallenbeck, Agenturblog, NYBlog, Txtblog , CuriousCreatures, TuriBlog, Customer of Hell, Timo Kotowski, Pop64, Sichelputzer .
StudiVZ has tried to defend their bad communication policy due to their workload, but at the same time they claim that some criticism is unproductive and will not be displayed on their blog (see here and here). The communication has improved a little bit during the last couple of days, with more structured blog entries. However they have also deleted their link to their blog on their starting page.
- Fake-Blogging
StudiVZ staff has appeared with their own names on other people’s blogs, but recently cases of fake-blogging have come up (see Don Alphonso (I) and DonAlphonso (II)).
- Wikipedia editing
Recently allegations of Wikipedia editing have surfaced – apparently a former StudiVZ staff member Julian Artope has deleted entries that in his opinion did not represent the truth about StudiVZ (see Don Alphonso (I), Don Alphonso (II), Notizblog, I-Jeriko).
The StudiVZ founders have claimed that they did not order the editings or were aware of Julians activities.
- Spam
The French StudiVZ spin-off is using spam-advertising (see Blogbar). Spam and profile grabbers have now also appeared on the German StudiVZ site (see Kurpick (I), Kurpick (II).
- False information
Some bloggers discussed if the number of student members in StudiVZ is real – apparently up to 10 percent of the StudiVZ entries are fake-entries (see Reader’s Edition, see also the fake profile by former Blogger and now Waz editor Katharina Borchert via Abseits, see the 10 fake profiles used by Sichelputzer).
After contacting the above mentioned “Fake profile” it became apparent that the profile belongs to a real person. However other fake identies probably exist.
- (Declining) Online Star 2006
Because of the above criticism and the bad performance, the decision (see also StudiVZBlog) to award StudiVZ the online star 2006 is under heavy critique (see Chaos or Blogdoch).
- Criticism towards Ehssan Dariani
Within StudiVZ resistance (see also this group) 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 (see also the following comment in the StudiVZ blog).
This is no surprise – since the founder of StudiVZ was mostly used for displaying the company – but has recently made some big mistakes for which he is under special heavy critique (see Peter Turi).
Ehssan Dariani has apologized for his various mistakes (see below and at the StudiVZ blgo here and here, which immediately stirred a whole load of reactions and also led to the search for his private pictures on the Internet (see VisualBlog, BlogNRoll, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Blogdoch (I), Blogdoch (II)).
- Sexism in StudiVZ
Bloggers (such as BooCompany) or newspapers (such as heise.de) point to a (now partially withdrawn) You-Tube Video (still available Peter Turis weblog) which features Ehsaan Dariani filming two girls in the subway of Berlin and criticize the sexism allegedly shown in the video.
Some bloggers criticize the publishing of the videos (see also Youtube) since critique should focus on the company’s behavior (see Robert Basic, Blogdoch, Goetheblog, Björnstar, Meckerziege).
- Anti-Semitism in StudiVZ
Bloggers discovered that the domain www.voelkischer-beobachter.de and www.voelkischerbeobachter.de are 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, also owned by Dariani, links to a German satirical movie about Hitler.
Furthermore, some bloggers have a copy of an invitation that he sent out for his birthday party in spring 2006. The invitation is designed like the Völkischer Botschafter – but was taken from the internet only two days later. Screenshots can be found on various blogs.
Recently more screenshots appeared which give the impression that Dariani tried to sell the URLs – or at least he offered them to sell (maybe without the intention to do so).
See Robert Basic (I), Robert Basic (II),Peter Turi, Don Alphonso, Blogbar, Der Sichelputzer, Dittes, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (I), Jörg-Olaf Schäfers (II), Goetheblog, Zeineku, VisualBlog, Fukkle Bim Jerry, Timo Kotowski, Rebellmarkt see also newspaper Handelsblatt, Die Welt).
Ehssan Dariani has responded to these allegations by referring to his and his company’s intercultural background (see StudiVZBlog). Yet instead of apologizing, he accused the bloggers of a false sense of political correctness which of course drew immediate criticism (see Ditte, Robert Basic, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Die Stimme der Freien Welt).
Ehssan Dariani replied to the accusations by apologizing for the mistakes
- Private editing
The makers of StudiVZ are trying to cleanup their private history in the web (see also Don Alphonso, Notizblog and Blogdoch).
- Conclusion
The above criticism leads to the question how long StudiVZ can survive. The list of problems is long and many other problems have maybe not yet surfaced. Some bloggers have already suggested a StudiVZ-Watchblog (see Andi).
The fact that many bloggers who are not speaking German are discussing StudiVZ shows the increased interest of the topic worldwide – even though some English bloggers are still trying to guess what StudiVZ means (see Readster, David Warwick).
Also the media is stepping on the train and are starting to research the blog-history of StudiVZ. I hope my link collection gives a good starting point for a good research. If you use the material, please make sure to contact both StudiVZ and bloggers in the scene to identify points that are not mentioned here. If the research is too lousy, the blog-o-sphere might respond appropriately (see Dittes, Robert Basic, Abseits).
More importantly,the list of users who are signing off from StudiVZ is getting longer (see Schnitzler, Haseler, Pottblog, Pop64, LasseRheinGans, Blog2, Kurpick, CWagner , KaiTimmer or HappyArts). Maybe because users are not free from stalking in StudiVZ (see Sichelputzer), but probably more because quite a few bloggers think that StudiVZ will be history soon or has large problems to say the least (seeVisualBlog, Provinzblog, NYBlog, Pop64, Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, Don Alphonso, Suedblog, Timo Kotowski).
This is a pity, since quite a few users are happy to use StudiVZ for their private and business purposes (for instance Gerhard Schoolmann describes in his blog in various articles – here, here and recently here- how he and his staff are using StudiVZ for advertising his bar, or see Helga Städtler describing the opportunities for Universities). The idea still has a potential – but it depends on the next moves of StudiVZ.
I have compiled a lists of things that in my eyes are needed – and put them online here.
A large number of German and International blogs have linked to my previous summary (see for instance Chaos@Paderborn, Schnitzler, Blogdoch , David Warlick, Customer of Hell, Robert Basic,Jörg-Olaf Schäfers, MyMediaMirror, Fimpern, Gastronomie Blog, Visual Blog, Michael Gross, Don Alphonso, Dave’s Blog, Florian Treiss, PlanSphere, SpreeBlick), even some newspapers (Frankfurter Rundschau).
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, they were extremely helpful to write this updated summary. The summary is far from complete, but it is better than the old one and I would be happy if you could update your link to this new page.
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 06:21
[...] Kasi-Blog « StudiVZ Encyclopedia – the most complete summary (until now) PR and StudiVZ » [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 12:51
Wow, good effort in getting it all written down, well done (…but, some tiny criticism: My name is ‘Lasse Rheingans’
)
November 15th, 2006 at 13:48
[...] combines a list of proposal for immediate reactions to the problems found at StudiVZ discussed at a meeting with the founders ofStudiVZ. [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 15:03
[...] As things develop, I will try to keep the new Summary up to date, but it’s getting more difficult. In any case, I disagree with Don Alphonso that the whole project is burned – only if they act like headless and in panic. I have updated my list of recommendations – for free, because I think that StudiVZ still has someting to offer – and especially updated the part of how to disclose the finances. We’ll see whether the StudiVZ people are learning. [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 15:59
[...] 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! [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 19:18
[...] Altogether this is drawing quite a lot of attention; StudioVZ is the third-most popular search term on Technorati at the moment. For an extensive English summary, see this post by blogger Karsten Wenzlaff, who has interviewed StudioVZ. Wenzlaff also points to mainstream media coverage of the issues from today’s Spiegel Online. (Thanks, Nico!) [...]
November 15th, 2006 at 22:15
[...] Was passieren kann, wenn man die Netiquette verletzt, kann man eindrucksvoll bei Basic Thinking sehen: StudiVZ wird dort des Software-Diebstahls und Domaingrabbings bezichtigt. Das Blog ist wichtig genug, dass einer der Gründer bereits nach einer guten Stunde zum Beitrag Stellung nimmt. In bisher 37 Kommentaren und Trackbacks wurden weitere Kritikpunkte genannt (Löschen unerwünschter Kommentare auf der Firmenwebsite und Bedenken hinsichtlich der Datensicherheit) und auf andere kritische Beiträge verwiesen. Besonders ausführlich (aber leider auf englisch): Karsten Wenzlaff. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 00:46
[...] Sollte StudiVZ tatsächlich den Besitzer wechseln und dieser bedenklicher mit den Daten umgehen, als es jetzt eh schon getan wird, dann werde ich meinen mit Schwachsinn und Unwahrheiten (entgegen den AGBs §6 2) gefüllten Account kündigen. Trotzdem muß man ja zugeben, daß die Idee nicht schlecht ist. Ich mein, jeder von uns hat da doch schon Leute wiedergefunden, die er jahrelang nicht gesehen hat. In einigen Fällen will man sowas nicht, in den meißten ist das allerdings sehr nett. Vielleicht gibts nach der massiven Kritik nun ein besseres StudiVZ – hoffen kann man es ja. Für Leute, die gerade Zeit zum Lesen haben, eine Zusammenfassung der Ereignisse gibt es hier (englisch) und hier zu lesen. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 01:07
[...] That just scratches the surface of the controversy, however, and there’s a lengthy English explanation here. In short, StudiVZ is the hot topic of discussion among German weblogs at the moment, seemingly bigger than the controversy that surrounded Facebook’s news feed feature and their decision to open up the site to everyone. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 01:20
[...] That just scratches the surface of the controversy, however, and there’s a lengthy English explanation here. In short, StudiVZ is the hot topic of discussion among German weblogs at the moment, seemingly bigger than the controversy that surrounded Facebook’s news feed feature and their decision to open up the site to everyone. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 01:28
[...] After the huge amount of critique that existed in the blog-o-sphere has been partially refuted and commented by the StudiVZ founders (see their comment on their finances, see Ehssan Dariani’s apology for his personal mistakes), and after I have written how fast the StudiVZ founders have learned from the blog-o-sphere, it is time now to ask: what have the bloggers have to learn from StudiVZ. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 02:07
[...] Just one month ago, the Chinese facebook clone Xiaoei was bought by Facebook. Now StudiVZ looks like it’s being bought by facebook. Soon Facebook will be bought by Yahoo for their network Yahoo 360? And Yahoo? Bought by Google’s Orkut? [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 12:50
[...] karsten again wrote a long and elaborate post on the german facebook clone, studi vz. besides doing awfully well in collecting links , karsten concludes in his all-embracing post whether the clone will survive. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 13:24
[...] Große Hoffnung auf eine rationale und wohldurchdachte Reaktion der Inhaber von einer Million Studivz-Accounts mache ich mir nicht. Vielleicht kommt auf irrationalem Wege das gleiche Ergebnis zu Stande. In einem Blog bin ich heute auf eine Drei-Worte-Zusammenfassung der Völkischer-Beobachter-Story gestoßen: “studivz sind nazis“. Der Vorwurf ist ungerechtfertigt, wahrscheinlich könnte die Firma auch den Blogger deshalb abmahnen oder gar wegen Verleumdung belangen. Wenn diese Botschaft aber bei dem Feld-Wald-und-Wiesen-Studenten ankommt, könnte das Auswirkungen haben, die den möglichen Kaufpreis empfindlich senken könnten. [...]
November 16th, 2006 at 15:23
That is a very profound and professional research on a given subject that one can post in a blog and as far as my knowledge goes there is no other post that gives this much in-sight on StudiVZ and as the matter of fact, I saw few posts on any subject with so much follow-up.
Thanks very much karsten for your effort to make us up-to-date on StudiVZ issue.
November 16th, 2006 at 20:09
Very interesting reading. Your blog readers may be interested in Karel Baloun’s book, “Inside Facebook” which is available for immediate download at http://www.FBbook.com, along with a related blog.
Karel was one of the earliest engineers at Facebook in 2005/2006, and provides unique insight into the company during the earliest stages of formation and insight into what it’s like working with the founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
November 16th, 2006 at 20:11
the above link may not work with the “,” appended, please try this link:
http://www.FBbook.com
Thanks!
November 17th, 2006 at 01:14
[...] Ich sehe mich ja ab und an als eine Art Gott Informamt, der euch mit allen wichtigen Sachen versorgt, die ihr eigentlich wissen müsst (okay, das mit StudiVZ hab ich nicht erwähnt, weil es ja überüberall rumging, hab da aber auch schon Schimpfe für bekommen, weil es wohl Leser gibt, für die ich die einzige Quelle bin. Darum verweise ich in dieser Klammer schnell mal auf diese (englische) Zusammenfassung und auch auf den anderen Don, weil der ja alles im Detail aufgedeckt hat (deutsch, sehr sehr viel zu lesen) und gebe noch schnell zu Protokoll, dass ich solche Gruppen extrem dämlich finde (der Gruppengründer ist übrigens ein Kommilitone von mir, nur so am Rande). Warum nicht einfach abmelden, wenn man keinen Bock mehr hat?). [...]
November 17th, 2006 at 02:13
[...] Kasi-Blog YAMB.BETA² BlogDoch Medienrauschen turi2 Blogpiloten [...]
November 17th, 2006 at 11:48
StudiVZ: Exmatrikulation?…
Eigentlich wollte ich mich der wärmenden Gemeinschaft vieler kläffender und neidzerfressener Blogger anschließen, als immatrikulierter Sozialnetzwerker meinen Senf dazu geben, die grausame seelische Zerissenheit zwischen eigenem moralischen Anspruch…
November 17th, 2006 at 12:28
Richtigstellung…
In dem Eintrag StudiVZ: Adolf Hitler Fangruppe wurde fälschlicherweise von mir geschlußfolgert, daß es sich bei dieser Gruppe, um eine Nazigruppe handelt. Laut Aussagen mehrerer Gruppenmitglieder handelte es sich allerdings nur um Satire. Dies möc…
November 17th, 2006 at 23:15
[...] I think that Don Alphonso is going too far. In his recent post, he describes various groups in StudiVZ which cover issues such as group sex and sex without condoms. This has nothing to do with the most problematic issue: the pseudo-elitism that marks the business-modell of StudiVZ. And it has nothing to do with the privacy controversy that Don Alphonso is criticizing and for which the StudiVZ makers are making some effort in defending themselves. And it has nothing to do with the fact that the makers of StudiVZ are using my list of ideas – even without quoting me. [...]
November 18th, 2006 at 00:11
[...] StudiVZ Encyclopedia A fairly complete of the rise and fall of the German Facebook clone StudiVZ (tags: blogs lang:en german germany web2.0) [...]
November 18th, 2006 at 09:49
Neues von und um StudiVZ…
Wenn man wollte könnte man den halben Tag damit verbringen Artikel über StudiVZ und Blogeinträge inklusive der Kommentare auf dem StudiVZ-Blog zu lesen. Nur habe ich diese Zeit nicht. Aber das Thema ist mir wichtig. Warum? Weil StudiVZ ein deutsches…
November 19th, 2006 at 18:02
[...] I. Vor ungefär zwei Wochen habe ich hier nebenbei ein wenig was über die Studentencommunity StudiVZ geschrieben – ich hatte versprochen, die Diskussion weiter zu verfolgen, habe dann auch irgendwann ein paar weitere Links veröffentlicht. Die Sache ist seit dem sehr stark hochgekocht worden. Nicht nur irgendwie ein bisschen – sondern sehr. Die Presse hat auf ihren Internetseiten darüber berichtet, auch Spreeblicks Johnny hat etwas zum Thema geschrieben. Man könnte das jetzt in epischer Länge zusammenfassen, aber es muss nicht sein, denn es ist überall nachzulesen (eine sehr gute Zusammenfassung findet sich hier). Ich muss sagen, dass mich es teilweise wirklich angewidert hat, wie manche da formulieren (die aber auch dafür bekannt sind, so ist es nicht), es wirkte wie eine Privatfehde, wie, als wäre der unbedingte Wille vorhanden, da ein Projekt in Grund und Boden zu schreiben. Der Verdacht des Neides oder der eventuellen Bezahlung für das schreiberische “Kaufpreissenken” liegt da nicht fern, da ja auch das Gerücht rumgeistert, dass das US-Vorbild Facebook (selbst aber wohl auch nicht die Erfinder des Konzepts) das StudiVZ aufkaufen wolle – aber gut: Wenn man etwas kontrovers diskutiert, wird darauf von vielen eingegangen, was dann den Andrang auf der eigenen Seite steigert und – so hier der Fall – nach den Sub-Printern sogar die Printmedien aufmerksam machen kann (FR, SZ, SZ2, Spiegel). [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 11:20
[...] Zum Nachsitzen beim Don >> Wer den Fall von “StudiVZ” nicht kennt, kann bei Karsten Wenzlaff nachlesen>> [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 12:11
[...] This morning Don Alphonso announced that StudiVZ has a huge data leak – which seems to be the next big problem in the StudiVZ history. [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 17:25
[...] pr-kloster.de: Musterbeispiel für fehlende Krisen PR pr-blogger: StudiVZ in der Kritik spiegel online: Peinliche Pannen bringen StudiVZ in Verruf Spiegel online: Studentenclubs kopieren Vorbilder aus den USA Fr-online.de: StudiVZ unter Beschuss welt.de: Große Deals und kleine Peinlichkeiten blog.derbumi.com: StudiVZ in original Facebook Farben… Spiegel online: Interview mit StudiVZ Gründer Ehssan Dariani Basic Thinking: StudiVZ = StudyLounge UK? kasi-blog: StudiVZ Encyclopedia – the most complete summary [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 23:51
[...] You sure have heard about the german social network startup StudiVZ (the link doesn’t go to their home page, but to a great summary of what all the fuss is about). [...]
November 21st, 2006 at 00:11
[...] Feine Sache. Aber… Leider haben sich die angeblich 1 Million User wohl in einer Community eingetragen, die es mit dem Datenschutz nicht wirklich genau nimmt: angeblich geschützte Bilder sind frei abrufbar (durch einfaches Editieren des Links), und das unpraktischerweise nach einer medialen Base über ihre Sicherheit, der Gründer des Unternehmens bastelt kleine Partyeinladungen im Stil des “Völkischen Beobachters” und hat gleich noch die passende Domain dazu reserviert (…was bei einerm evtl. bevorstehenden Verkauf an Facebook.com, von dem offenbar sowohl Layout als auch Code gerippt wurde doch störend wirken dürfte). Sehr interessante – englische – Zusammenfassung im Kasi-Blog. Peinlich, peinlich, wie nicht nur Spiegel-Online befindet. [...]
November 21st, 2006 at 21:27
[...] Hauptsächliche Quelle und noch genauere Übersicht [...]
November 22nd, 2006 at 01:12
[...] I have just created a nice new place where all my friends connect to each other. Already a million of my friends and their friends have come to my place. They left pictures, they left details of their private life, they left messages to each other. Wow, what a nice community. We all love each other. Despite some small problems. [...]
November 22nd, 2006 at 02:55
[...] Jaja, die Leute schreiben immer noch übers StudiVZ. Also schreib ich jetzt endlich mal die Sachen auf, die ich in den letzten Monaten (seit meiner Anmeldung beim StudiVZ, Mitte September) so bemerkt habe. [...]
November 22nd, 2006 at 15:27
StudiVZ und die (Ohn?)Macht der Blogs…
Nachdem StudiVZ in den vergangenen Seminarsitzung ja schon kurz Thema war, wird es langsam Zeit, auf Jamba-2 aufmerksam zu machen. Don Alphonso berichtet in der Blogbar sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr, sehr regelm…
November 23rd, 2006 at 16:19
[...] Nachtrag: Ich habe eine ganz wichtige Quelle übersehen. Eine englische Zusammenfassung die auf keinen Fall unerwähnt bleiben sollte. [...]
November 24th, 2006 at 14:04
[...] Zusätzlich zu denen im Text vergrabenen, weitere lesenswerte Artikel zum Thema “Fakten und Datenschutz rund ums StudiVZ und andere Soziale Netze”: http://fx3.org/blog/2006/11/21/studivz-unseren-tglichen-privacy-gau-gib-uns-heute/ http://blog.phoenitydawn.de/index.php/2006/11/12/studivz-fakten/ http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/06/nsa_datamining_social_networki.html http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/06/09/1245212.shtml http://www.karsten-wenzlaff.de/?p=115 http://www.basicthinking.de/blog/2006/11/01/studivz-studylounge-uk/ [...]
November 24th, 2006 at 17:07
Für unsere polnischen Freunde:
Skandalistyczna firma startup StudiVZ i Polski oddzial studentix.pl
http://gesundheit.blogger.de/stories/615333/
November 25th, 2006 at 04:26
[...] The blogosphere is running so fast that I have a hard time keeping up with the StudiVZ news. Even though I try to keep the Encyclopedia fairly accurate and up-to-date, it is difficult to include the recent developments as fast as they are happening. So here for all my English-speaking readers, a short but hopefully accurate description of what happened at StudiVZ. [...]
November 25th, 2006 at 11:40
[...] The blogger Florian Altherr is suggesting humorously that the PR of StudiVZ resembles a more recent failed “coup de PR” in the Middle-East (see left). However StudiVZ investor Lukasz Gadowski suggested in his blog today that he sees his PR role more closely resonating the most-famous “éminence grise” (see right): [...]
November 26th, 2006 at 02:06
[...] Eine ebenfalls sehr gute, englischsprachige Zusammenfassung des ganzen StudiVZ-Rummels findet man hier – thematisch sortiert, was für viele vielleicht einfacher/interessanter ist: http://www.karsten-wenzlaff.de/?p=115 [...]
November 26th, 2006 at 04:03
[...] [1] In aller Kürze: StudiVZ ist das größte studentische Networking-Portal in Deutschland, das aus verschiedenen Gründen in die Kritik geraten ist: Bedenkliche Sicherheitslücken; problematische Gruppen innerhalb des Angebots; unakzeptables Verhalten eines der Gründer; unklare Zukunft des Angebots (wird es evtl. verkauft?) und damit der hinterlegten Daten. Stellvertretend für die Vielzahl der möglichen Links: Das hervorragende Dossier von Karsten Wenzlaff und der jüngste aus einer Vielzahl von Einträgen von Don Alphonso, der in gewisser Weise die ganze Sache ins Rollen gebracht hat. [view academic citations] [hide academic citations] Bitte wie folgt zitieren: Schmidt, Jan (2006): StudiVZ und neue Öffentlichkeiten. In: Bamblog [Weblog], 26 Nov. 2006. Online-Publikation: http://www.bamberg-gewinnt.de/wordpress/archives/603. Abrufdatum: November 26, 2006 Alternativ die APA citation: Schmidt, Jan. (2006). StudiVZ und neue Öffentlichkeiten. Retrieved November 26, 2006, from Bamblog Web site: http://www.bamberg-gewinnt.de/wordpress/archives/603 [...]
November 26th, 2006 at 17:40
[...] http://www.karsten-wenzlaff.de/?p=115 (englisch) [...]
November 26th, 2006 at 17:53
StudiVZ – Eine Zusammenfassung…
Eben in World of Warcraft eine nette Spielerin kennengelernt. Was das mit StudiVZ zu tun hat? Ganz einfach, sie ist Studentin und wurde bereits mehrfach gebeten, sich bei StudiVZ anzumelden.
Auf ihre Bitte hin hier nun eine Zusammenfassung der Vorf&a…
November 27th, 2006 at 14:20
[...] StudiVZ went offline – for unknown reasons but with a lot of justification. Maybe they just want to hide some of their Stalker and anti-semitic Nazi-Groups? [...]
November 28th, 2006 at 00:07
Holy fuck, pretty awesome job!
November 28th, 2006 at 02:13
[...] Nochmal zur Erinnerung: [...]
November 28th, 2006 at 11:13
[...] IT&W, blogbar, die süddeutsche und spon (hier und hier) referieren die probleme von studivz. ne zusammenfassung über die hintergründe von studivz gibt es auch hier. und deswegen denke ich werde ich den laden nicht weiter unterstützen. die werden bestimmt sowieso demnächst verkauft / aufgekauft / kostenplfichtig oder so…. [...]
November 28th, 2006 at 15:41
[...] Diese Liste der StudiVZ-Pannen ist nicht ansatzweise vollständig. Einen netten Überblick über Fakten zum StudiVZ gibt es übrigens hier: http://www.karsten-wenzlaff.de/?p=115 [...]
November 28th, 2006 at 23:20
[...] Hervorragende Zusammenfassungen gibt es im Kasi-Blog und bei Falk Lüke. [...]
November 29th, 2006 at 11:44
[...] StudiVZ stays in first place for almost a week now and you can read the whole story in an own encyclopedia. By the way, blog posts are 60,074 (zune, ranked 4th) to 2,912 ( studiVZ, ranked 1st), Brintey Spears made it up to 476,985. [...]
November 30th, 2006 at 05:30
[...] I went to Technorati tonight to find something cool to blog about. As I looked at the “Top Searches” section, I saw some familiar names : Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and Studivz. Wait a minute… Studivz? What the $^#& is that? So I clicked on it, and every blog posting was in German. I only know a few German words, like gesundheit, so of course I couldn’t read any of the postings. So I searched in English only, and a few explanations came up. It turns out that Studivz is the German version of Facebook! It looks similar to Facebook, only everything is red. If you want to know more interesting facts, check out the Studivz Encyclopedia! Liked It? Share It! Clicking on the icons below will help other people learn about this storyThese icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
November 30th, 2006 at 09:50
[...] … achja, StudiVZ: Summary in English [...]
Dezember 1st, 2006 at 19:29
[...] Dies soll ein Versuch sein, die Geschehnisse um das StudiVZ nochmal chronologisch zusammenzufassen. So etwas wurde schon von Miachel hier und von Karsten hier (auf englisch) getan. Ich versuche das aber noch etwas ausführlicher (und auf deutsch) zu schreiben. Desweiteren versuche ich, objektiv und ohne Wertung zu schreiben. Dieser Artikel wird ständig aktualisiert. [...]
Januar 12th, 2007 at 19:08
[...] In the last weeks and months a social community network called StudiVZ [Wiki] gained more and more popularity in Germany, now having more than a million of registered members, although the most headlines in the news haven’t been that positive: Security problems, plagiarism and even connections to extreme right-wing movements have been dominating Blogs & News Feeds. You’ll find an extensive review and discussion of these accusations on Kasi-Blog, which by the way is always worth a peek. [...]
Januar 27th, 2007 at 18:39
http://www.samuraij.de/studivz.jpg
http://www.samuraij.de/gruscheln.jpg
Februar 3rd, 2007 at 02:36
[...] Für 85 Millionen Euro an Holtzbrinck verkauft, anderthalb Millionen Studenten-Profile, herumgereicht auf allen möglichen Web 2.0-Konferenzen als Start-Ups des Jahres: die Jungs von StudiVZ fühlen sich bestimmt als Sieger auf der ganzen Strecke. Die paar Probleme des letzten Jahres sind ignoriert oder überwunden worden, außer ein paar bösen Bloggern und einigen dummen Medienartikeln gibt es an ihrer Erfolgsstory nicht viel zu meckern, oder? Zeit sich ein neues Betätigungsfeld auszusuchen. jetzt sind die Schüler an der Reihe. [...]
Februar 4th, 2007 at 01:47
[...] Als die Umfrage Anfang Dezember anlief, war die Debatte rund um studiVZ gerade in vollem Gange. Wir haben deswegen kurzfristig noch zwei Fragen dazu aufgenommen, um einen Eindruck zu bekommen, wie sich die Teilnehmer über dieses Thema informieren. Etwas mehr als die Hälfte der Befragten (57%) hatten zum Zeitpunkt der Umfrage von den Diskussionen rund um studiVZ gehört. Diese Gruppe (137 Personen) haben wir dann gefragt, a) wo sie zum ersten Mal von der Kritik an studiVZ gehört/gelesen hatten und b) über welche Quellen sie sich im Folgenden informiert haben. Sowohl für die erstmalige Kenntnis als auch für den Fortgang der Diskussion spielten Artikel bei SPON, Gespräche mit Freunden oder Bekannten und das studiVZ-Blog selbst die wichtigste Rolle, während andere Quellen vergleichsweise wenig genutzt wurden. [...]
März 7th, 2007 at 00:41
That just scratches the surface of the controversy, however, and there’s a lengthy English explanation here. In short, StudiVZ is the hot topic of discussion among German weblogs at the moment, seemingly bigger than the controversy that surrounded Facebook’s news feed feature and their decision to open up the site to everyone.
März 7th, 2007 at 11:34
StudiVZ went offline – for unknown reasons but with a lot of justification. Maybe they just want to hide some of their Stalker and anti-semitic Nazi-Groups?
März 30th, 2007 at 15:49
[...] Kasi-Blog hat eine große StudiVZ-Enyklopädie in englischer Sprache zusammengetragen. Man könnte die Zusammenstellung auch als Beleg für die [...]
Mai 16th, 2007 at 16:52
[...] is a lot of rumors going on through several blogs, that studivz had serious problems concerning user’s privacy and server security.(studivz [...]
Juni 5th, 2007 at 08:16
Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, daß diese Anzahl repräsentativ für einen so großen Kreis sein kann. Das ist insofern verfälscht.
Juni 5th, 2007 at 17:49
StudiVZ ist das heterosexuelle synonym für gayromeo….nur noch langweiliger…gähn
Juni 16th, 2007 at 14:39
[...] NEIN, nein ich weigere mich, diesen nazi-dreck zu [...]
August 15th, 2007 at 09:39
[...] cooler als Jack Ass es je war. Geil geil geil. Und die doofen Blogger regen sich immer wieder so herrlich über uns auf. Aber wir brauchen schnell was Neues. Um im Gespräch zu bleiben.” “Haste [...]
September 11th, 2007 at 14:35
[...] facebook clone Xiaoei was bought by Facebook. Now StudiVZ looks like it’s being bought by facebook. Soon Facebook will be bought by Yahoo for their network Yahoo 360? And Yahoo? Bought by [...]
Oktober 10th, 2007 at 00:36
[...] the huge amount of critique that existed in the blog-o-sphere has been partially refuted and commented by the StudiVZ founders [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 16:02
[...] We did talk about all kinds of issues, from technical problems to PR problems to Ehssan’s personal PR problems to legal issues. I have included their anwers in my updated Summary of StudiVZ. [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 16:04
[...] following article combines a list of proposal for immediate reactions to the problems found at StudiVZ discussed at a meeting with the founders of [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 16:04
[...] things develop, I will try to keep the new Summary up to date, but it’s getting more difficult. In any case, I disagree with Don Alphonso that [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 16:05
[...] it has nothing to do with the privacy controversy that Don Alphonso is criticizing and for which the StudiVZ makers are making some effort in [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 16:09
[...] more recent failed “coup de PR” in the Middle-East (see left). However StudiVZ investor Lukasz Gadowski suggested in his blog today that he sees his PR role more closely resonating the most-famous [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 16:12
[...] 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 [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 21:11
[...] went down – for unknown reasons and with a lot of justification. Maybe they just want to hide some of their Stalker and anti-semitic [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 21:44
[...] I have just created a nice new place where all my friends connect to each other. Already a million of my friends and their friends have come to my place. They left pictures, they left details of their private life, they left messages to each other. Wow, what a nice community. We all love each other. Despite some small problems. [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 21:45
[...] so fast that I have a hard time keeping up with the StudiVZ news. Even though I try to keep the Encyclopedia fairly accurate and up-to-date, it is difficult to include the recent developments as fast as they [...]
Oktober 15th, 2007 at 21:46
[...] reported that StudiVZ has a huge data leak – which seems to be the next big problem in the StudiVZ history. The images are saved on a different server and have public access – despite the StudiVZ [...]
November 28th, 2007 at 18:38
[...] krisengeschüttelte Studentenportal StudiVZ beeindruckt wieder mit Extremen: die enormen Nutzerzahlen und die [...]
Juli 28th, 2008 at 13:37
[...] wieder wird auf deutsche Blogs verwiesen. Ein zusammenfassender Artikel von Karsten Wenzlaffund ein nicht mehr online erreichbarer Artikel von unfehlbar.net sind unter anderen als Anhang [...]
Juli 28th, 2008 at 14:25
[...] 98 Eine ausführliche Zusammenfassung anderer Blogposts [...]
Juli 30th, 2008 at 14:45
Facebook vs. StudiVZ…
StudiVZ wurde schon oft vorgeworfen, nur eine schlechte Kopie von Facebook zu sein. Was bisher für Diskussionsstoff im Internet sorgte, wird nun zu einer juristischen Auseinandersetzung. Facebook hat vor einem amerikanischen Gericht eine Klage gegen S…
August 31st, 2008 at 16:42
Trotz allem ist es noch immer “in”, “drin” zu sein.
Oktober 1st, 2008 at 05:41
Schaut euch das mal an: http://www.studiverzagte.de – hö, hö, coole Domain – und ne ganz nette Community mit witziger Idee
April 2nd, 2009 at 23:39
Ich finde Studivz ist eine riesige Community die es verpasst hat eine bestimmte Zielgrupe abzudecken. Ich denke mit einer reinen Studentenzielgruppe wär alles um einiges besser und leichter geworden. Die Pannen sind zwar zurückgegangen doch auf langer Sicht gesehen wird es bei der größe immer wieder zu Pannen kommen. Wie heisst es so schön aus Fehlern lernt man.
Gruß
Markus
Mai 15th, 2009 at 14:15
Hallo,
dann möchte auch eine gute Alternative zu Facebook und StudiVZ zeigen: http://www.stuxum.de
Ciao
Natalie
Dezember 30th, 2009 at 18:22
[...] des auch in Amerika nicht unumstrittenen facebook.com. Die Peinlichkeiten des Gründers reichen von Nazi-Geburtstagseinladungen bis hin zu peinlichen Videos, in denen er hübschen Blondinnen in U-Bahnen und Toiletten nachstellt [...]