Localists (network)
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| "My, your - our friends!" | |
| social network | |
| languages | German |
| operator | Localists Media GmbH |
| Registration | Yes |
| On-line | May 2005 (currently switched off on September 30, 2016) |
| http://www.lokalisten.de/ | |
“ Lokalisten ” or Lokalisten.de was a social network operated by Lokalisten media GmbH . The online community was founded in May 2005. In October 2006 it had already reached a membership of 325,000, in July 2010 around 3.6 million. The highest usage was reached in October 2009 with 43.2 million visits; Since then, the platform has suffered sustained heavy losses, so that the number of monthly visits in April 2014 was 1.7 million.
The members came mainly from Augsburg , Munich and Stuttgart , but partly also from other major German cities, such as Berlin , Cologne or Frankfurt am Main . There was also a separate home base for other countries (e.g. Hungary, USA or Italy). Since mid-October 2006 ProSiebenSat.1 Media has held a 30 percent stake in Lokalisten media. At the end of May 2008, ProSiebenSat.1 took over a further 60 percent. Allegedly between 20 and 30 million euros should have been paid for this. Localist users were also called Lokis or localists . Approx. 2 million users were active in 2009 and 2010. Those numbers fell to 800,000 users in 2011 and to 200,000 in 2014. Most recently, 50,000 users were still active in June 2016.
On August 31, 2016, the operators informed all registered users by email that the online community would be closed on September 30, 2016. Most recently, around 600,000 users per month visited the network. Up to this date, users were able to save personal pictures and messages before their accounts and all data were deleted.
Registration and functionality
In the beginning, localists could only register if they were invited by an existing member. A registration as a so-called newcomer was later made possible, but with some restrictions.
Registered users could enter further data and change it continuously in order to create a web business card with a personal profile that was only accessible to localists . In addition to personal contact information such as dialect, profession, dance style or favorite book, a wide range of information on leisure activities such as hobbies or sports, as well as information on training and the schools attended could be provided. In addition, each user had the opportunity to upload photos and videos and present them in their own categories (photo albums). The first image was used as a preview image in the search results and overviews. All of this should make it possible to present a certain image of oneself and thus to sharpen the public impression.
After logging in, users could offer each other friendship, look around for other members using the search function or click through friend trees - graphical representations of other users' relationships. It was possible to search for contacts by username or real name and by email address, but the real name was only visible in the friend trees if the two users confirmed the friendship.
Every user could click on every other user and view the information shared about them and view their uploaded images. The user could determine which information was visible to unfriendly people. Every user was shown who had clicked on them or viewed their profile. If you clicked on a strange user who is not directly friends with you, the website showed you the connection to the respective user via the chain of friends and their friends. If there were many complaints against a user, this could lead to the exclusion of that user. Each user had the opportunity to keep a small diary in which they can insert a short text and a picture. Entries in the guestbook that other users had written could either be accepted or deleted.
Optionally, the user was informed of further messages, friend requests or special events in the form of an e-mail newsletter .
In addition to maintaining contacts via the internal message system, Lokalisten.de offered an event calendar, a marketplace and a blog system. The events were entered by the users themselves, which in larger homebases such as B. Munich often led to fun entries in the event area. These events, which were presented to the user thematically and regionally, comprised party announcements, sporting events, requests for help, sales offers as well as notices and messages of all kinds the offer. There was also the possibility of writing someone in their virtual guest book.
financing
The load on the server through regular queries had initially shown the limits of privately financed servers during peak afternoons and weekends. The performance suffered not only from the over 60,000 registered users at times, but also from the GUI , which requires the processing of large amounts of data. However, there was seldom prolonged overloading of the server.
The server maintenance and hosting was supported by SpaceNet AG and many costs were borne by the founding members. These had initially ruled out funding through advertising and instead were able to earn money through T-shirt printing, their own local dirndl and party events.
Homebases
The homebase (home base) of the localists referred to the place of residence of the respective user indicated on the website. There were around 100 homebases on the site in Germany, most of them from the Upper Bavaria and Bavarian Swabia region . In Austria there were home bases for the federal states of Upper Austria , Salzburg , Styria , Tyrol and Vienna , in Switzerland for the cantons of Bern , Basel-Stadt , Lucerne , St. Gallen and Zurich . The establishment of home bases in other countries was sought.
Chat
A chat was offered on Lokalisten.de. This comprised four chat rooms in which users could talk in a group chat: living room, children's room, library, bedroom. All chat rooms were moderated by local helpers on the platform. A 1-to-1 chat was also possible.
The localists offered their own XMPP chat server. So there was the possibility to use the localist chat with a Jabber program like Psi or Pandion. This could be reached via the server name im.lokalisten.de. The username and password were the same as those chosen in the community. The contact list only contained members who had been accepted as friends via the localist website. The authorization mechanism of XMPP could not be used. It was also not possible to connect to and from external XMPP servers. The chat was used regularly by only a small fraction of the localist users.
Awards
- Pedi seal of approval in the category "Recommended multimedia products for young people" (2006)
- VisionAward_07 in the "Online" category (2007)
criticism
In a study in August 2008 , the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology criticized the extent to which the community can configure privacy . An official statement was made after a short time. Then it was possible to delete his account in the web interface and it was no longer necessary to write an email.
Other
On localists there were also applications such as B. Buddy Poke, Emote !, Friendwheel or Jukebox. A special feature of localists was the consistently lower case in the user interface provided by the developers. This differentiated the platform from other social networks . Since 2008 localists have been advertising with the presenter and singer Daniel Aminati, known from Galileo and taff .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Numbers and facts from Lokalisten.de
- ^ IVW - Information Community for the Determination of the Distribution of Advertising Media eV: Online usage data Oct 2009
- ↑ IVW - Information Association for Determining the Distribution of Advertising Media eV: Online usage data Apr 2014
- ↑ "Localists" is discontinued
- ↑ Social network: localists are switched off
- ↑ ProSiebenSat.1 Group continues expansion in the Internet / participation in the social network "Lokalisten" ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Message from October 17, 2006 on the ProSiebenSat.1 website
- ↑ ProSiebenSat.1 takes over localists for 25 million euros , report at Netzwertig.com on May 24, 2008
- ↑ heise online: Localists and the crux with the network effect. In: heise online. Retrieved October 2, 2016 .
- ↑ Social network localists closes the gates. Heise online, September 1, 2016.
- ↑ heise online: Localists and the crux with the network effect. In: heise online. Retrieved October 1, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Instructions for the localist chat ( memento of the original from February 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ List of Pädi-Gütesiegel winners 2006 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Pedi
- ↑ List of Visionaward_07 winners , c / c / c Clef Creative Communications GmbH
- ↑ Study on privacy protection in social network platforms ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.9 MB), Fraunhofer Institute , September 26, 2008
- ↑ Official statement on the Fraunhofer study ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 147 kB), localists media GmbH
