iWiW

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iWiW ( International Who's Who ) was a virtual social network that was known and loved in Hungary and existed from 2002 to 2014.

The story of iWiW

iWiW was founded under the name WiW on April 14, 2002 in Hungary by the software developer Zsolt Várady . Along with Ryze, Friendster and Everyonesconnected.com, the site was one of the first virtual social networks to be experiencing a second boom at the time. Zsolt Várady was awarded the State Prize e-Magyarország-díj (e-Hungary Prize) for his invention . On October 26th, 2005 iWiW received a new design and several functions were added. Since then, the system has been available in 16 languages ​​and was now called iWiW - which alluded to its international distribution. The new user interface included a. Features such as classified ads, the ability to upload images, group acquaintances and graphically represent one's own network to acquaintances. Since this expansion suddenly resulted in an unexpected number of new users registering and the technology could not keep up with it, restrictions had to be introduced. For a while you couldn't upload pictures and the invitation function had to be blocked. On February 10, 2006, all previously registered users were given the opportunity to send a single invitation. Later every registered user received an invitation every quarter, which he could "give" to another user.

In April 2006 iWiW was bought by the internet provider T-Online , from July 2006 the international versions of iWiW were discontinued.

On May 20, 2014, iWiW informed all members by email under the subject “Bezár az iWiW” that the site would be closed on June 30, 2014. The subsequent deletion would be discussed with Hungarian data protection and would be monitored by a notary.

The iWiW system

You can register with a member after being invited to ensure that each member has at least one friend. The system is currently operated by a Korlátolt felelősségű társaság ( Ltd. ). When registering, you can enter other data in addition to your email address and name, which are automatically saved, e.g. B. The workplace or the schools attended, which then makes it easier for others to identify the members. If you discover friends in the iWiW system, you can mark them. The acquaintances can confirm or reject the acquaintance. Some data, which the members can determine themselves when creating the user profile , only become visible to acquaintances after the acquaintance has been confirmed. In the past, only acquaintances could see the acquaintances of the other, now it is possible before the acquaintance is confirmed. The “shortest path” function shows how many acquaintances there are between two people. In theory, the number can never be higher than six. With the "Send message" function, you can also send messages to strangers using an online form (unwanted senders can, however, be reported and blocked) and there is also a notice board on the home page on which you can tell everyone you know. You can see for each user when he / she last logged in, and with the messages sent you can also determine whether the letter has already been opened. On December 18, 2006, iWiW had more than 1.5 million users.

The main goal of iWiW is to track down old acquaintances, in contrast to orkut , which you can e.g. B. also used for dating or common interests. In order to prevent misuse, when registering you have to declare yourself ready not to make the data of other users available to third parties. Users who harass others will be banned. Again and again, the names and data of known people, such as B. that of Viktor Orbán abused and created user accounts in their name, but these are deleted. In this case, the person who sent the invitation for the user is “liable” for the new “user”.

Since summer 2007 there has been a virtual network for Roma called Zhoriben. The site is run by the same team as iWiW and has set itself the goal of popularizing the Romanian language Lovári. However, there have been no blog entries there since 2011.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Végleg lekapcsolják az iWiW-et at hvg.hu ( Hungarian )
  2. iWiW.hu. Retrieved February 14, 2019 (Hungarian).
  3. https://zhoriben.blog.hu/

Web link