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Learning to Poke in German

Facebook Takes On Local Clones in Germany

By Julia Bonstein

In the battle for online communities, US companies like Facebook have had a hard time muscling in on competitors in Germany. But now Facebook is taking on the local clones with a full German version of its site, translated by its users.

To the layman, the importance of an original is reflected in how many times it gets copied. Countless postcards of the Mona Lisa, for example, ultimately enhance the reputation of the original in the Louvre in Paris. But on the Internet, though, imitation tends to be seen as a threat rather than the sincerest form of flattery.

Facebook, the hugely successful American social networking Web site, has already racked up about a dozen knockoffs in Germany. The student social networking site StudiVZ is perhaps the boldest of the bunch and is now so successful that the US original was virtually forgotten in Germany -- at least until last week, when the Americans launched a German version of their site.

"We have the better product and a community that is growing worldwide," Facebook's vice president for strategy and operations, Matt Cohler, announced, thereby sounding the battle horn in the contest for Internet dominance in Germany, one of the world's most important markets.

Every user who registers with Facebook to chat, send emails, organize his group of friends or simply flirt, counts. In the competition for advertising revenues, which can be worth millions, only those who can offer a large audience will ultimately survive.

A Crowded Market

With more than 5 million -- mostly student -- users, Facebook clone StudiVZ is currently the industry leader in Germany. German publishing company Holtzbrinck paid about €85 million ($132 million) for the young Internet company last year and is toying with introducing advertising. But even before the network can begin to make money, California-based Facebook is setting up a German version. The Americans are arriving late to the party -- perhaps even too late.

Once again, an American portal is venturing the plunge into the German market, which resembles a school of sharks more than anything else. Internet goliath AOL has already pulled out of the race for German broadband customers. Yahoo's email service has never managed to prevail against German email providers such as Web.de and GMX. And the online auction house eBay, which has already acquired its upstart German copy Alando, has been battling against stagnating user numbers for some time.

Facebook, for its part, hopes to score big with technical refinements and sheer size. It will offer German users the chance to strike up and maintain international friendships through its global network. With 67 million active users, Facebook is indeed the world's second-largest social-networking site after market leader MySpace (see graphic) and is the fastest growing online community. It's also a valuable piece of Internet real estate.

After being acquired by Microsoft, the company -- founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 -- is now valued at $15 billion (€9.8 billion). Considered the youngest billionaire in history, the 23-year-old CEO is already set for life.

But despite its success, Facebook's appeal hasn't quite taken hold in Germany, where its click rates are still meager. The Americans paid too little attention in the past to German Internet users. Moreover, the market dominance of the copycats is now difficult to crack.

In addition to market leader StudiVZ, its little sister SchülerVZ -- designed for high school students -- has already established itself with about 3 million younger networkers. Just in time for Facebook's market debut, the Holtzbrinck-owned company has launched a third network, MeinVZ, aimed at providing older users with a networking platform, too.

Other social networks, including lokalisten.de, Wer-kennt-wen.de, Knuddels and many other virtual relatives, are all courting new customers. The online network Xing, which specializes in business contacts, has used its 1.6 million German users to put its US counterpart LinkedIn in its place. In fact, the German-language version of LinkedIn announced in 2006 still doesn't exist today.

Only MySpace seems to have found success in Germany. According to the network, it has managed to triple its user numbers to 4.5 million since it launched a German version in August 2006. MySpace attracts members with features like its so-called "Secret Shows" -- real but supposedly secret concert dates. This is already far more creative than anything Facebook has dreamed up to amuse its users.

Talking the Talk

The Californians, on the other hand, had their users work for them. Instead of hiring professionals, Facebook recruited its own fans to translate the site -- voluntarily and free of charge, of course -- which is completely in the spirit of the participatory network. "We're not doing it to save money," says Facebook's Cohler, "but to get the best results." As a result, the German Facebook world now has linguistically correct German versions of terms such as "friends," "networks" and "classified ads" -- and thereby much of what German clone StudiVZ already offers.

Instead of the word "gruscheln" -- a neologism which combines the German words "grüssen" (greet) and "kuscheln" (cuddle) -- which StudiVZ users use to flirt with each other, Facebook finally offers a decent translation of the much-used Facebook term "poke," namely "anstupsen," which is closer in meaning to the English verb.

Facebook plans to continue using amateurs and is even outsourcing some particularly glamorous tasks. The company sent a German user, 23-year-old actor Kostja Ullmann, to accept its prize for "Web leader of the year" at this year's award ceremony of the prestigious German media prizes, the LeadAwards. It was also meant as a thank you to all its fans.

Or perhaps there was simply no Facebook employee available. The company has, in fact, not yet hired a single person on a permanent basis in Germany.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan