Spin.de
| Spin AG | |
|---|---|
| legal form | AG |
| founding | 1996 as a GmbH |
| Seat |
Regensburg , Germany
|
| management | Fabian Rott |
| Number of employees | about 30 |
| Website | spin-ag.de |
Spin.de (spelling: spin.de) is an online community that has existed since 1996 and is operated by Spin AG , which combines a chat , blogs , user profiles , forums , photo voting , online games and other features on one platform. Spin.de claims to have around one million active members . With the relaunch in April 2007, the platform implemented functions of social software . Before that, the name was Spinchat .
History of origin
The community was originally a demonstration system for the company's 1996 chat software . Due to the growth in the early years, the demonstration system developed into an independent community, which from 1999 to early 2007 was called "Spinchat".
offer
A user name must be registered to use Spin.de. To do this, it is necessary to provide an email address and confirmation via SMS or by entering a telephone number. This is intended to make it more difficult to register users who have violated the terms of use in the past and have been excluded.
Since the establishment of social networks such as Facebook or Twitter , the number of users on Spin.de has fallen, which can be attributed to a change in Internet usage behavior, which has increasingly shifted away from chats to social networks.
Profile verification
Since the summer of 2010, users have been able to undergo a profile check on a voluntary basis in order to have their authenticity confirmed. For this purpose, the user can upload a scanned or photographed ID document as well as a self-portrait on which the person holds up a piece of paper with a certain combination of numbers. If the same person is depicted on the photo of the identification document and the second portrait, the user receives the status “verified user”. The activation is carried out by the community administrators. The identification document is deleted after the check and the portrait is not shown publicly in the profile.
Basic functions
The other functions of the website include the creation of a user profile with the option of providing personal information about yourself (contact details, interests, hobbies, etc.), creating your own sub-pages from this and uploading photos . Self-managed friend lists, guest books, photo albums and blogs are part of the user profile.
In addition, there are over a hundred thematically structured discussion forums , a photo voting area as well as an event calendar and a music magazine. Community members also have the opportunity to form groups with one another, each with their own discussion forums and photo albums. Another offer consists of various online games that can be played alone or with other users.
Spin points
Spin.de offers “Spin Points” as a virtual currency. These are purchased free of charge up to a certain amount by logging in daily or staggered by purchase. For spin points, users can give other users changing virtual “gifts” of different values. This is a graphically designed, larger icon of the selected gift that can be sent to another user with a private or public greeting. Typical gifts are a “hot chocolate” for ten spin points, a “guardian angel” for twenty spin points, a “hot mulled wine” for three spin points or the “Ever-Glowing Heart of Sansibar” for two hundred spin points. Gifts received are visibly listed on the left edge of the profile, with a large number of gifts received representing a high reputation within the virtual community.
For users who have few or no “friends” within the “spin community”, there is the option of “gift roulette”. This is a virtual variant of the elf within the community, whereby Spin.de has a pioneering role due to the introduction in 1996 : If you want to participate, you choose a gift of any value and mark it for participation in the gift roulette. Every day at 7 p.m. all gifts will be raffled off automatically. You cannot see who has received the gift, unless the person concerned reports, leaves a guest book entry or gives something back. At the same time, for the gift given, you will receive a random other one in return, which may be of higher value. Unless you identify yourself to the giver with another gift or a guest book entry on their profile page, you remain anonymous. The maximum amount is limited to ten gifts for participation in the gift roulette.
A seasonal variant of the “Gift Roulette” is the “Advent Calendar Edition” in the run-up to Christmas, which creates a connection to real elves as a typical activity, especially during Advent . This works in the same way as above, but the exchange of gifts takes place in the virtual advent calendars that are activated annually for all profiles in November and December .
Regional sub-communities
In addition to the main page, there are regional sub-communities that are operated in cooperation with radio stations such as Radio 7 or Hit Radio FFH . The most used area of the sub-communities is the chat, in which over 20,000 users are active in the evening hours. In addition to the various topic, age or region-specific chat rooms - to which every member has access - private chat dialogues are also possible.
technology
Spin.de uses techniques such as Ajax and Dynamic HTML to implement the chat functions . Parts of the software - such as B. the online games - were programmed in Java .
Protection of minors
Contributions and profiles as well as postings are randomly checked for violations of the terms of use . Uploaded photos - especially from underage users - are checked before being published online . If a user violates the guidelines , he can be excluded from the community. Any user can report such violations to the Spin.de support team. Operators in the chat rooms and moderators in the forums monitor compliance with netiquette .
The operator of the website medienbewusst.de considers Spin.de unsuitable for children under the age of 16 in general. He recommends Spin.de only for young people who already know how to behave in chats with regard to their privacy.
statistics
According to the information community for determining the spread of advertising media (IVW), Spin.de had over 520 million page views per month in 2008 . The unique visits were according to IVW at over twelve million per month. The regional communities operated in cooperation with radio broadcasters are not included in these figures. In 2008, the same number of female and male users were registered. Spin.de was one of the largest providers of German-language blogs in the same year.
financing
Spin.de was originally financed through advertising . In February 2002, the free registration was replaced by a fee-based one, in order to solve problems with multiple user registrations - in particular from blocked users. Since this measure reduced the growth of the community, registration has been free again since June 2005. In the meantime, the so-called VIP program has switched to mixed financing, in which additional services are activated for a monthly payment, some of which were previously free. These services include a. lifting the internal e-mail restriction, switching off advertising, an increased number of guest book entries, an expanded friends list, simultaneous chatting in several rooms or the possibility of integrating a larger number of pictures in your user profile. Another form of financing is the sale of spin points.
Web links
- Spin.de - main page
Individual evidence
- ↑ See http://www.spin-ag.de/presse/profil.html
- ↑ Spin Points , accessed May 1, 2020.
- Jump up ↑ Spin Gifts , accessed May 1, 2020.
- ↑ Gift Roulette at spin.de: How does it work? , accessed on May 1, 2020.
- ↑ Gift Roulette (Advent Calendar Special Promotion) at spin.de: How does it work? , accessed on May 1, 2020.
- ↑ Medienbewusst.de: Spin.de - Unsuitable for children under the age of 16 , from December 17, 2012, accessed on May 1, 2020
- ↑ All data according to ivwonline.de apply to the period from July 2008 to November 2008 (accessed on January 8, 2009).
- ↑ https://www.spin-ag.de/online-werbung.html
- ↑ See article on news4press.com ( Memento of the original from November 6, 2009 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. (last accessed: March 12, 2009)
