The StudiVZ is 15 years old. It has actually gotten so old, even if it is now only called VZ and has had a turbulent time. Whereby turbulent relates more to the ownership structure than to the hustle and bustle among the users. The original, Facebook, was and is much more successful. Nevertheless, we would like to write a farewell greeting for the anniversary.

Until a trend or a service has spilled across the pond, it has 2005 still lasted. One reason for this was certainly that the social networks did not yet exist, where you are guaranteed to be bogged down with every nonsense from challenge to Buffalo boat revival. Before the first social network really became known in Europe, others had already copied it and called it StudiVZ. Red instead of blue, German instead of English. You could grumble at someone instead of poking – both of which were equally conceived and meaningless. There wasn’t much more difference. However, Facebook’s lawsuit against plagiarism failed.

Unique selling proposition province The StudiVZ initially targeted itself, stuck in the name of students. That also corresponded to the model. This circle quickly expanded. In order not to exclude anyone, the sister MeinVZ was christened and the two networks were linked. After all, Facebook never had this problem, after all, we all have faces. What the offshoot also forgot: Students and large parts of the population speak English. Accordingly, there was emigration after just a few years. What remained The groups. A unique selling point of the VZ.

Instead of just presenting yourself with contributions in the timeline, photos and status reports, this also happened at StudiVZ via the groups that were visible to other people of which one was a member. They were not intended as an exchange and more as a statement. Every copywriter for stupid office mugs, t-shirts and wall tattoos probably looks secretly envious of the creativity of the crush to this day.

A few sayings from memory:

SPSS: The A is not missing free of charge Who is this LAN and why does it have so many parties? Confident appearance with complete ignorance If law were easy, it would be called BWL I have a motivation problem until I have a time problem I live in my own world. That’s OK, they know me there Ladies and gentlemen, it’s going down for you: the level! The last group mentioned then also shows, not only that it was an original and this fact in itself attracted members, the StudiVZ also had something that tended to be provincial. While you could exchange ideas with your friends all over the world on Facebook, if you had them, in VZ it was limited to the DACH region. The number of members, limited for this reason, continued to decline. At weddings there were at least 17 millions. And today?

Restart goodbye Try to revive the network, are more desperate than any group name printed on a t-shirt in the hope of making someone else happy. There was an almost unmanageable jumble of investors. Holtzbrink got in, sold to Vert Capital, who called the company Poolworks, the next sale to the Momentous Entertainment Group was pending, followed by bankruptcy and only recently another attempt.

Now it should only called VZ, in April the restart was announced. Lieferando founder Jörg Gerbig took over the networks from the bankruptcy estate. Social media should be made social again, it said in a press release. That’s a nice thought, but socially it would mean that people there would have to interact with one another. And well, not even your own social media team, let alone VZ’s blog, are maintained by people. After the announcement, nothing more followed.

Some groups currently have a few hundred members. Contributions can be rewarded with a laughing cat face. It all reminds a bit of the unpleasant WhatsApp group, in which someone still posts a funny picture that you don’t want to see. Therefore:

Dear VZ, I wish you roughly for your birthday: Nothing. Let’s say goodbye and not goodbye. It will not get better. There are still a few nice memories left: of times when the social network was not a projection screen for advertisers and data was evaluated in SPSS. Don’t break that too. Buy an A, buy Bockwurst and let it go. 15 is a proud age. Google took many of its services to the cemetery much earlier. So, bye.

(emw)