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.
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