Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 11th November 2008
3 COMMENTS 
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
The biggest social network in Germany, StudiVZ announced a partnership with Rotterdam based Nimbuzz.
Basically it comes down to this:
1. Nimbuzz enters a commercial partnership with social network StudiVZ (12 million users), bringing real-time web and mobile communication to their social networks.
2. They have agreed on a revenue share that will start generating income from adverts sold on StudiVZ in ‘09
3. Nimbuzz will add the following features to the StudiVZ community: location sharing, SIP calling, Personal Message and they have support for 11 languages.
Nimbuzz claims to grow at 10k registrations a day and they have a 25% active user base in over 200 countries worldwide. More distribution deals will follow.
It seems like Nimbuzz has found a way to tap into existing social networks in stead of building one of their own. I think that is a smart move. They have received over 25 million in funding from amongst others Mangrove and Holtzbrinck Ventures.
Update: Holtzbrinck gmbh, bought StudiVZ a couple of years ago. Aha…. that explains part of the deal. If you are wondering what to spend 25 million on finding on here is one example. Yes, it is a Nimbuzz sponsored Porsche. That explains the 10k sign-ups a day!
Written on 23rd October 2008
2 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
The German equivalent of Facebook “StudiVZ” saw it’s CEO Marcus Riecke leave today after apparent disputes regarding the company’s direction. According to the sources of Mike Butcher (of Techcrunch UK) there was great debate about whether to sell to Facebook or continue their dominance within Germany themselves.
The company, now owned by publishing group & investor Holtzbrinck, released a statment translated into English via Google Translation:
Change of Management at studiVZ Ltd.
Stuttgart (AP) – The publishing group Georg von Holtzbrinck following changes in its subsidiaries studiVZ Ltd. [would like it to be] known: Marcus Riecke, CEO of studiVZ Ltd., is leaving the company at his own request with immediate effect.
In addition to his duties as Vice President of Sales, Dr. Clemens Riedl took over the task of studiVZ Ltd CEO. Dr. Riedl was in August this year as a long-time manager of Holtzbrinck Tagesspiegel to studiVZ Ltd.
“We thank Marcus Riecke for his very successful work in studiVZ Ltd. And its contribution to the development of the company,” said Dr. Jochen Gutbrod, Deputy CEO of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, and for online business.
The site continues to enjoy great success in Germany with 10 million users in comparison to Facebook’s 800,000. This is likely to be a popular discussion point during the final day of the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin.
Written on 8th August 2008
3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
On July 19th Facebook allegedly filed a copyright lawsuit against German copycat StudiVZ, in what they claim is an infringement of Facebook’s “look, feel, features and services”. The International Herald Tribune has picked up this story and brings a former StudiVZ senior executive up to the stage. He revealed that Facebook had been negotiating for months to buy the German social network. This didn’t work out and now both parties are on their way to the court house.
StudiVZ ten times the size of Facebook.de
The German version of Facebook was launched in March, after 2000 German users voluntarily fixed the translating job in less than two weeks. Yet so far, Facebook hasn’t managed to attract a large German audience. StudiVZ had 12.2 million users in June, which is about ten times of the size of Facebook.de. So like my co-editor Patrick de Laive predicted in January; an acquisition of StudiVZ would immediately solve Facebook’s German problems.
“Facebook may have the superior technology, but it doesn’t have the users in Germany,” said the executive to the IHT, “That is what Facebook wants with StudiVZ.”
Many times 85 million euros
What makes this story extra interesting, is that StudiVZ was bought by the large German media company Holtzbrinck Group for around 85 million euros. Facebook has to pay several times this price. Apparently, Facebook wasn’t willing to accept this bid and now uses the copyright lawsuit as a encouragement for the Holtzbrinck Group to sell the German clone.
So why isn’t Facebook.de popular?
So much for the business details, let’s touch a different subject now. Why isn’t Facebook popular in Germany? Well, for the same reason Facebook isn’t hitting it off in Holland. The local network was there first. People have gone through all the trouble of connecting to their friends. So why would they – all of a sudden – switch to an international version?
There’s of course the group of people with a higher education who join Facebook to keep in touch with people they’ve met during international exchange programs. But the majority of German and Dutch people are satisfied with StudiVZ and Hyves. They can send messages to their friends, connect with old classmates, what more to ask for?
Written on 19th July 2008
5 COMMENTS
Joop Dorresteijn, East Asia correspondent
Facebook has started to take action against their copycats, and filled a copyright lawsuit against German copycat StudiVZ, in what they claim is an infringement of Facebook’s “look, feel, features and services”. This claim is filled a month after Facebook won the accusation filled by ConnectU, claiming that Mark Zuckerberg was a copy cat and stole the social platform idea in 2004.
Facebook in Germany
Facebook has launched a German version of their social network a few months ago, but has problems to attract visitors. StudiVZ claims to have 10 million users, and call themselves “the most successful social network in Germany, Austria and Switzerland”. Their website is not only similar in usage, it also looks a lot like Facebook. The biggest differences are the color conventions and that the copy does not offer an English interface. Techcrunch reports that StudiVZ was acquired this year for about $100 million. (€ 63 million)
Other copycats are next?
Washington Post reports that there are nine other facebook clones out there, and expects Chinese owned Xiaonei, with an exact duplicate to be next. Facebook has to protect their brand and experience, but a but a laugh every once and a while is important too, let’s hope that parodies as Crackbook, Arsebook and Rightwingfacebook are taken with some sense of humor by the Facebook’s lawyers. As entrepreneurs, the people behind estudiLN have cashed their successful copycat approach.
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
