studiVZ

StudiVZ (short for StudiVerzeichnis ) is an online community for students and next meinVZ a project of the VZ networks that belonged to a subsidiary of the publishing group Georg von Holtzbrinck. The Social Network was established in November 2005 and was the first of the three projects. By 2009, StudiVZ was offered in different languages ​​with separate platforms, but since then focused exclusively on the German-speaking countries.

History

StudiVZ was born on 11 November 2005. than project of StudiVZ Ltd. founded. It was an idea of Ehssan Dariani (CEO). Dennis Bemmann was CTO. The site resembled the then English-only counterpart Facebook both visually and in content - the only key differentiator was the chosen red color.

The project developed rapidly as a social network and was originally designed for 2.3 million students in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In autumn 2006 offshoot of StudiVZ for students started in France ( studiQG ), Italy ( studiLN ), Spain ( estudiLN ) and Poland ( studentIX ). Due to the success in the German speaking countries and the ever-increasing growth of non-students almost identical projects with a different target group were started with schülerVZ and meinVZ. For students was specially founded in February 2007, the schülerVZ, wherein students from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol are networked. For users who have completed a course of study or not study at all, a third platform called meinVZ was opened in the English and German language on 28 February 2008.

As of 20 January 2009, the platforms for Spain, Italy, France and Poland have been set. The VZ networks since then focused exclusively on the German-speaking countries.

The project for students counted about 6.2 million registered users in November 2009. In the first quarter of 2008 StudiVZ had approximately 5.5 million unique users, making it one of the most successful online media in Germany.

One published in April 2011 representative survey, the VZ- networks with respect to the number of members in Germany have been overtaken by Facebook. While 27 percent of German internet users were registered with a VZ network, there have been on Facebook about 47 percent. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung already sees the end of the VZ- networks and wrote that the VZ- companies were submerged.

In February 2012, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the VZ- networks have experienced a decline in page views by 80%. This is explained by the low activity of the members. Only 5.9 million of the 16 million members were, for example, in October 2011 active. The average monthly visit duration to the users has declined steadily from January 2011 to February 2012, while it has risen continuously the competitor Facebook in the same period. Lag visit duration at the VZ-networks at the beginning of the period still slightly ahead (196 minutes per month vs. 155 on Facebook ), so were users at the end on average more than five times as long as the competitor (70 minutes per month vs. 383 at Facebook). In August 2012, comScore counted only 2.8 million " unique visitors " all three VZ- sides, StudiVZ recorded the lowest proportion with 591,000 visitors.

Development

With StudiVZ and meinVZ first two platforms were connected by an interface, so that - if permitted by the individual member - can be accessed profiles from both sides. With the platform schülerVZ now-closed was not such a connection from Child Protection Laws. Also, links between the different language versions did not exist. meinVZ reached, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in June 2009, approximately 3.17 million members, of which, however, many by a large-scale " move " action there impersonated former StudiVZ users.

In the past criticism was especially in blogs and online magazines, but also from various major newspapers, practiced in the behavior of the operators. This went so far that the end of 2006 even warned student representative before using StudiVZ. The schülerVZ was seen even more critical due to the underage clientele.

Then StudiVZ began in early 2007 with the discussion of a Code of Conduct, which was followed by a change in the General Terms and Conditions (GTC) and technical improvements. Since May 2007 StudiVZ is also a member of the Voluntary Self-Monitoring of Multimedia Service Providers Association ( FSM).

Functions

The system counts for social software. It provides inter alia the following functions:

• The choice of a university at which the user currently studying. The choice is not optional and visible even in hidden profiles.
• To make creating a profile with the possibility of diverse information ( contact information, interests, hobbies, just visited courses, etc.).
• Function to search for other students, using the profiles stored in interests and courses ( here one distinguishes general search, profile search and group search).
• The Cross-project search in meinVZ project
• Display of connections ( contacts) between registered in the system members.
• Formation of groups with group discussion boards, now over a million. Each member can join up to 125 groups. The topics of the group are completely arbitrary and vary from concrete problems to pure ( formulated by name ) witty statements.
• Create photo albums and upload photos.
• Photo tagging: Single people in photos can be linked to their user accounts.
• Report: Links in various places on the page with which you can point the operator of rule breaches by other users or groups.
• Ignore: Certain people may be placed on an ignore list. Subsequent contact and view of the profile is then no longer possible.
• Plauderkasten: With contacts that are online at the same time, you can chat as in an Instant Messenger.
• Video series " Pietshow ": StudiVZ presented for the first time from October to December 2008, a total of four 15 minute episodes ( webisodes ) a fictional story about the Berlin Film students Piet online. The Grundy UFA produced the published exclusively on the Internet series. The series for the International Digital Emmy nominated in March 2009, but did not win it. Following the success of the web series at the VZ members of the VZ networks and Grundy UFA determined to produce more episodes. Since 20 October, the Pietshow can be seen in the proven format on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the new episodes.
• Bush telegraph is a Twitter - like service that allows sending messages with a maximum length of 140 characters. These messages are displayed on all " friends " on the home page. The function can be coupled with Twitter, so that messages from the grapevine appear on Twitter and vice versa.
• The partner function has the purpose of the profile of his partner and to connect their own.
• Gruscheln: A formative concept for StudiVZ is the function of Gruschelns, which was devised by Ehssan Dariani and was also transmitted to the offspring meinVZ and schülerVZ. The " Gruscheln " is based heavily " nudge " the Facebook function. This is a feature to contact other members. Gruscheln has no official definition, but it is often interpreted greet and cuddle by the press and users as the connection of the words. Each user has their own interpretation free. In the space of the Franconian dialects the word in everyday language means about as much as dig or burrow in the sense of looking.

Criticism

Risk of misuse by third parties

Sites with many personal user data such as StudiVZ an inherent risk that an unauthorized third party data mining operate. It is feared by combining the data with other social network identity theft. Actually succeeded on 9 December 2006, a total of 1,074,574 download StudiVZ profiles and thus subsequently to create an analysis of profile information. In addition, a program was published, which made ​​it possible to store all data freely accessible after logging in StudiVZ and represent friendship connections graphically. Such an automated access to the page is made more difficult by using so-called spelling since December 2006.

In February 2007, there was again an attack on the site, which is supposed to be the attacker managed to obtain immediate access to the database of the system and thus also reach unpublished data such as passwords and e- mail addresses of users. StudiVZ has then the passwords of all members and had to reset the page again from the mains for several hours.

In the course of 2009 a program was published on the Internet, with which one could solve the spelling used by the VZ-networks automatically; however, this did not result in external affairs recognizable change in the security measures. Known three cases from October 2009 in which a total of several million profiles of different VZ- networks, in particular the SchülerVZ, said to have been downloaded using a script were. By exploiting various vulnerabilities in the VZ networks, it was also possible to July 2009, as "private and only visible to friends " capture data marked. An appropriate data collection with more than 100,000 records has surfaced in October 2009. The exact circumstances and contents of the contacts between the VZ networks and the data collector as well as the circumstances and reasons for his arrest and his suicide in detention are unclear.

Privacy

The user is offered options that allow it to restrict access to sensitive information, they are enabled to protect users by default. The profile is limited in terms of visibility, changes require the active and individual quality control on the part of users. Depending on the setting privacy options, only certain information (eg the name) for the viewer of the profile remain visible; for friends, further details will be made ​​available ( such as links to photos). To log in and anyone who has a valid e- mail address.

When you create your own photo album, the user can choose whether this album should only be made visible for him, for all persons with whom he is friends, or for all users.

Saved images

Another point of criticism is to manage the users uploaded to a photo album: StudiVZ stores these images in directories on a Web server, a portion of the image URL is determined using a hashing algorithm. Since the images are otherwise unprotected, can all pictures, also marked as private, be viewed by anyone on the internet, which is known to the URL. The URLs for example, could be shared with friends or published on the Internet.