More Details on Facebook’s Battle With StudiVZ in Germany

August 7th, 2008

A few weeks ago, it was reported that Facebook had filed suit against German social network StudiVZ, accusing the company of “replacing Facebook’s blue colour scheme with a red one” and said it was “seeking to end StudiVZ’s illegal activity to ensure that users are not confused and that Facebook’s reputation remains unharmed.”

Today, Kevin O’Brien at IHT reports that before Facebook sued StudiVZ, the companies had been in negotiations “for months” for Facebook to buy StudiVZ. However, StudiVZ’s owner, the Holtzbrinck Gruppe, is asking for “several times” the reported $134 million it paid for the site last year.

“Facebook may have the superior technology, but it doesn’t have the users in Germany,” said this executive [close to the deal], who insisted on anonymity because the talks were confidential. “That is what Facebook wants with StudiVZ.”

Due to pending legal action, both companies refused to comment.

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7 Responses to “More Details on Facebook’s Battle With StudiVZ in Germany”

Nick Stamoulis Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
$134 mil to gain popularity in Germany? Just how many users are on that site anyways?
Someone Says:
August 11th, 2008 at 6:31 am
There are three sites operated by StudiVZ (users / page impressions):

StudiVZ (students) ~ 5.4m, 5 billion
SchuelerVZ (targeted at pupil) ~ 6.7m, 6.3 billion
MeinVZ (everyone) ~ 1m, ?
from

On Alexa they rank as follows:
StudiVZ - 7th
SchuelerVZ - 12th
(Facebook - 20th)
MeinVZ - 30th

FYI: 1st google.de, 2nd google.com, 3rd YouTube, 4th EBay Germany, 5th Yahoo!, 6th Wikipedia and then already StudiVZ –> They are in the market
Inside Facebook » Facebook Awards €40,000 to Winners of German Application Contest Says:
October 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am
[...] Facebook’s battle with StudiVZ in Germany rages on, the company is doing something to build the German Facebook Platform developer [...]
Chris Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Now end of Jan 2009 (Alexa)

StudiVZ - 9th
Facebook - 12th
SchuelerVZ - 14th
MeinVZ - 22th
Interesting Tidbits from Interview with Mark Zuckerberg at DLD Conference | Webtrendblog.com Says:
February 7th, 2009 at 11:42 am
[...] Facebook now has 2 million users in Germany, compared to 1.2 million in October (the company is currently suing German competitor StudiVZ for copyright infringement) [...]
Facebook Raising Another $100 Million to Fund Increasing Server Costs Says:
March 26th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
[...] year. The Samwers are also investors in German Facebook clone StudiVZ, which Facebook is currently suing. If you liked this post, please subscribe via RSS, email, Twitter, or [...]
Facebook Audience in Germany Reaches 2 Million Users Says:
May 12th, 2009 at 12:54 am
[...] 2007, it was sold to a German publishing group for possibly up to 100 million Euros. A year later, Facebook filed suit against StudiVZ for intellectual property infringement, a move that lead industry speculators to wonder which [...]