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 5.000 at 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
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?
- Interact more with your high-profile users
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.
- Allow business modells using StudiVZ
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.
- Use the best technologies available
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).
- Make StudiVZ a meta network
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.
- Encourage copy-cats
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)
- Bring back the old start-up feeling
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.
