who knows who

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Who knows who
Website logo
Your home on the web
Community portal or online contact network (see social network )
languages German
Seat Cologne
operator RTL interactive (Mediengruppe RTL Germany)
editorial staff Fabian Jager, Patrick Ohler
user registered approx. 9.6 million
(as of February 2012), of which almost 2.1 million are actually active (as of March 2013)
On-line October 3, 2006 (currently switched off on June 2, 2014)
https://web.archive.org/web/20130615163155/http://www.wer-wissen-wen.de/

Who-knows-whom (short form: wkw ) was a social network that was operated by werbekannt- wen GmbH (formerly Werden-wen.de GmbH) based in Cologne . Since February 2009 it has belonged to 100% RTL interactive . In March 2013, with almost 2.1 million active users (unique visitors), it was ranked 11th among social networks in Germany. All online functions were switched off on June 2, 2014 at 09:20 a.m. (CET).

history

Wer-knows-wen was founded on October 3rd, 2006 by Fabian Jager and Patrick Ohler while studying computer visualistics at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Koblenz . At the beginning, this network was only intended for personal purposes, it was intended to make contact with their acquaintances easier for Jager and Ohler, but as the number of members grew, so did the level of awareness in Germany. After half a year there were 50,000 members, and on December 2, 2007, the millionth user was registered. The two founders gave up the management on September 1, 2010.

The offer was operated by Werkenntwen GmbH, in which RTL interactive GmbH had held a 49 percent stake since February 2008 . The share was increased to 100 percent in February 2009. The platform reached its peak in 2010. In February 2012, according to the IVW test , Wer- ness.de was one of the ten most popular German-language websites with around 63 million unique visits . After the two founders gave up the management and left the company on September 1, 2010 - in August 2010, who-knows-who still had over 163 million page visits (unique visits) - the use of the platform fell significantly, as recorded in October 2013 the site received 23 million monthly visits.

By means of a relaunch in October 2013, the operators tried to curb the loss of online visitors by introducing new functions and a new design. In the first four months after the relaunch, the number of page views fell rapidly by over 40 percent from 23 million at the beginning to around 13 million.

On March 28, 2014, RTL interactive announced the separation from werwissenwen after massive coverage losses. Investors were initially sought. As with other social platforms, the massive loss of users by werwissenwen was mainly due to the success of the American online network Facebook .

At the beginning of May 2014, RTL interactive announced that it would be discontinuing June 1, 2014. 40 employees were affected by the closure of the platform.

Functions

The number of acquaintances as well as their names could be seen within werknowen. There was a function to search for other people, schools, clubs or groups, also using the interests stored in profiles. There were status publications. What are you doing right now? that could also be made visible outside the platform. There was a guest book. You could form “groups” on a topic or join existing groups. Another function was the creation of "photo albums" or the uploading of photos. With “Photo Tagging”, individual people could be linked to photos with their user accounts. Violations of the rules by other users or groups could be reported using the "Report" button. Certain people could be put on an ignore list. A subsequent contact or view of the profile was then no longer possible. “My page for others”: The user could have his profile displayed as other people would see it at werwissenwen (views for “People I know”, “People I don't know” and “People I ignore "). Other people could be invited to join werwissenwen. With the help of the class functions function, you could enter the former or current school or university in the profile and find all people who have already registered for this school or university, sorted by year. There was a celebrity profile for celebrities. Furthermore, you could become an expert, these were members who answered questions from other users about functions. There were apps for Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Blackberry, as well as games for those who know nothing.

Users

Werkenntwen was aimed at users aged 14 and over, but also had many older members. The majority of users initially came from Rhineland-Palatinate , Hesse and Saarland . Since 2009 werwissenwen has been available in Austria and Switzerland with an identical range of functions.

In February 2012 Werkenntwen had 9.6 million registered users, of which, according to Comscore , just under 2.1 million were actually active on the platform in March 2013.

Privacy and security

The email address provided by users during the registration process was not shown to others. In addition, members had the option of specifying in their privacy settings from whom they would like to receive messages and who was allowed to see which profile information: "Only myself", "Only people I know" and "Everyone within who-knows- whom". In external search engines, profiles fromurchknowen.de were generally not displayed, but they could only be viewed after logging into the platform. The user could choose in his privacy settings whether he would like to see regional advertising and advertising that suits him. Otherwise he saw general advertising. Since 2010, the username and password have been transmitted via an SSL-encrypted connection. On a separate security page, the operator provided information about security functions and pointed out how to set his profile more securely.

Study on privacy and security
A study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology from the end of August 2008 examined the various aspects of the security of the who-knows-whom platform.

The study praised the fact that logging out of who-knows-whom is problem-free and easy. The deletion of the data could take place with a slight delay. However, text entries outside of the profile remained, even if the associated user name was changed to a deleted user . The privacy settings were easy to find and clearly laid out. Help texts made it easier for inexperienced users to find their way around.

The access control differentiated between direct contacts (first degree) and all users. As a result, a lot of personal user data could only be released for these two groups of people. The user could also choose not to share any data. What was noticed negatively in the study was that neither the contact list nor the groups to which the user belonged were subject to this access control. For example, it would have been possible to identify the user via the circle of contacts, even if he did not want this. Under certain circumstances, for example, a religious affiliation could be inferred from the group names. Later, however, the ability to hide groups was created.

Images could be called up externally, and a warning was displayed when uploading them.

Protection of minors

Young people under the age of 18 automatically preset more restrictive privacy settings than adult users: contact details such as street or telephone number were not shown to anyone - this information had to be actively activated. Young people could only be linked to photos with their consent. Also, they could only receive messages from their contacts. The operators had set up a youth protection page with information for parents and teachers as well as rules and tips for young people on how to deal safely with who-knows-whom. who-knows-whom was a full member of the voluntary self-regulation multimedia service provider e. V. (FSM) and took part in the awareness campaign "watch your web", sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection and the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth , which sensitizes children and young people to the handling of their data on the Internet should.

In March 2009 who-knows-who signed a self-commitment code with other German competitors. The self-commitment code included measures that regulated the protection of minors, data protection and consumer protection in the German offerings in a more uniform manner and made them more transparent for users. The voluntary declaration of self-commitment included, among other things, the obligation to provide extensive privacy settings for users, the provision of direct complaint options in the event of violations of the community's rules, the possibility of "ignoring" other users, as well as clearing up information for users within the platform z. B. on the various privacy settings.

criticism

No pseudonymous use of the platform was intended. However, some users avoided this by giving a wrong name when registering, even if this behavior contradicted the operator's general terms and conditions and could lead to exclusion from the platform.

In the standard configuration, some data of a new profile was released for all users of the platform. This did not apply to young members. The privacy settings of minors were preset so that only direct contacts could see their profile content and write to them.

Knowing an image URL, it was possible to call it up from any web browser without being a member of the platform.

A user in the who-knows-who community had quoted parts of a song text by Prinz Pi and KIZ . Information was leaked to WikiLeaks that the user data was reported to the police without notifying the person concerned. According to the director of the Kaiserslautern District Court , the police called up the user profile in the course of other investigations and discovered the quotes. In the penalty order issued , the user was charged with disturbing the public peace with the song texts not marked as quotations . Even before this investigation, a collection of knives and paintball equipment were confiscated from the user .

The redesign of the platform introduced in October 2013 met with criticism. Groups were formed within the network, some with thousands of members, who dealt very critically with the “new wkw”. Above all, the visual approach to Facebook and Google+ was criticized, which would have largely lost the independent character of werknowledge, the “subtle difference to Facebook”, as well as the confusion and the nested structure of the new system, which made the user-friendliness suffer. In addition, the new software appeared immature, had system errors for months, and malfunctions kept coming back. One of the most popular features, a calendar that you can use to meet other members, has been switched off.

financing

  • Display marketing by IP Germany
  • Cooperations, social media integrations, individual concepts
  • Local ads
  • wkw-Mobil: In October 2009, the mobile tariff of the social network sucht- Wen.de started in cooperation with the telecommunications group Vodafone .
  • wkw parties
  • wkw shop

Awards

  • OnlineStar in the Social Communities category (October 2008)
  • werbekanntwen was named “Website of the Year 2012” in the category “Community Portals & Social Networks” in the criteria “Best Website” and “Most Popular Website”.
  • In 2012 the user support from werwissenwen was named "Service Champion 2012".
  • Award of the company blog "wkw-Blog" with a shortlist nomination for the German Prize for Online Communication
  • werwissenwen won the 2013 “Most Popular Website of the Year” award in the “Community Portals & Social Networks” category.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b RTL interactive offers crack 100 million video on demand mark in February. RTL interactive, March 8, 2012, accessed on May 6, 2014 (press release).
  2. ↑ The German top 20 social networks. (No longer available online.) In : haben-know-wen.de. Meedia, archived from the original on May 20, 2013 ; Retrieved May 20, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Social networks: RTL closes "Who knows whom" on June 2nd. In: Heise Newsticker . May 6, 2014, accessed May 6, 2014 .
  4. ↑ who-knows-whom Numbers and facts on wird-wen.de.
  5. ↑ FAZ: "Planned with 4000 users, now there are five million". In: FAZ.net . December 22, 2008, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  6. ↑ From zero to one million in one year: Social network sucht-wen.de on the road to success ( memento from September 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) wer-knows-who press release from December 2007 (PDF, 180kb).
  7. Jump up ↑ bert-wen.de: Founders give up management RTL interactive press release of August 26, 2010.
  8. Jump up ↑ RTL interactive and habenhaben-wen.de enter into a partnership. (PDF; 184 kB) (No longer available online.) In : haben-sam-wen.de. Werden-wen.de GmbH, February 20, 2008, p. 1 , archived from the original on September 20, 2008 ; Retrieved October 24, 2010 .
  9. ↑ RTL interactive acquires wird-wen.de completely RTL interactive press release of February 3, 2009.
  10. ^ IVW : Online usage data February 2012 ( Memento from May 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ http://ausweisung.ivw-online.de/
  12. ↑ The anti-Facebook is back . Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger from October 23, 2013
  13. ↑ berten-wen.de: Online usage data on IVW-Online , accessed on March 12, 2014
  14. ↑ For old friends: Who-knows-whom. In: focus.de. focus.de, accessed on September 15, 2011 .
  15. ↑ Security with who-knows-whom. Werden-wen.de GmbH, February 10, 2012, accessed on February 10, 2012 .
  16. ↑ a b Privacy protection in social network platforms. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology . Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research e. V., September 23, 2008, pp. 65-71, 90 , archived from the original on November 21, 2010 ; Retrieved October 25, 2010 .
  17. ↑ Protection of minors
  18. ↑ Self-commitment code ( Memento from September 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ↑ Protection of minors on who-knows-whom. Werden-wen.de GmbH, accessed on July 11, 2011 .
  20. ↑ Kaiserslautern District Court: 50 days in prison for quoting a song text on erst- wen.de. In: WikiLeaks. October 20, 2009, archived from the original on August 17, 2010 ; Retrieved October 24, 2010 .
  21. ↑ Lars Wienand: 20-year-old punished for song lyrics at WKW. In: rhein-zeitung.de. Mittelrhein-Verlag GmbH, accessed on October 24, 2010 .
  22. ↑ wkw adapts to Facebook . SDR, November 9, 2013.