Andreas Kaplan and Michael HanleinInternet marketing experts, in the book define social media as:
[…] a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and which enable the creation and exchange of user-generated content
If you accept this definition, then with the appearance in the world first social networking sites we were dealing more or less at the end of the 1990s. It was then that portals such as SixDegrees.com and Makeoutclub. They enabled, among others, creating your own user profiles, as well as searching for and adding friends to your list.
Sixdegrees.com Sixdegrees.com
In Poland, for many people, almost synonymous with the phrase “social network” is our-class.pl (and later simply nk.pl). Indeed, the portal founded in 2006 (about which we will write more in the next episode of our series) made a huge sensation on the Vistula River, and in some At that time, the number of its users reached almost 15 million.
However, Nk.pl was certainly not the first project of this kind in Poland. Ba, sticking to the chronology, you can even say that it was the last one “truly Polish” social network before the advent of Facebook and Twitter.
Tenbit.pl Tenbit.pl
Tenbit.pl, a youth internet portal
Okay, so who was first? Established in 1998 comes to the fore here by the ITI Group, the Tenbit.pl website. Although it was primarily an information website for young people, it also offered such functions as How to create your own profile and chatting with other users.
Interestingly, in 2000 Tenbit even lived to see own TV programme broadcast on TVN. In total, 150 episodes of the “Tenbit.pl” program were broadcast, and two years later it was replaced by “Tenbit GSM”.
Tenbit.pl photo: WaybackMachine
Speaking of GSM, it is worth adding that the creators of the portal benefited from the boom in mobile telephony in Poland. In 2002, Tenbit.pl launched its own GSM department – through it, users could e.g. buy ringtones and wallpapers for your “cells”. Another element of this expansion was also its own SMS gate.
The peak period of popularity of the website is considered to be 2004, when the number of users exceeded 700,000 with 67 million views per month. Today these numbers may not impress, but 19 years ago they were quite an achievement. In the same year, Tenbit.pl was acquired portal Onet.pl and that was also the beginning of its end. Increasingly deep integration with Onet discouraged users, and at the same time more attractive social networking sites appeared on the market, offering a number of new functions. The site was finally closed in 2012.
Fotka.pl Wayback Machine
Fotka.pl – from a social network to a dating app
While there can be doubts as to whether Tenbit.pl was a social network or rather an information portal, in the case of Fotka.pl there are no such doubts. The website was founded in 2001 by Rafał Agnieszczak and Andrzej Ciesielski was originally modeled on the American HotOrNot.com. The idea behind it was quite simple: users posted their photos, which were then rated and commented on by other users of the platform.
Registration was required to use all the functions of the website. Unlogged in people could only view photos – without the ability to rate and post comments.
It was more fun than business. Then it turned out that people were entering the site by the hundreds of thousands every day, so it started to monetize. As a consequence, instead of treating it as a hobby, we started treating it as a business
– Rafał Agnieszczak recalled in 2015 in an interview with Polish Radio.
Fotka.pl Fotka.pl
With the increase in popularity, Fotka.pl began to gain new functionalities, such as chat, forum and groups. An important turning point in the history of the site it was 2005, when one million users registered on the platform. A year later, the creators introduced a paid premium version. It is worth noting that Fotka.pl was also the first Polish social media that launched mobile version – m.fotka.pl (this took place in 2010).
The years 2006-2007 are considered to be the peak of popularity of Fotka.pl, when the site generated up to 100 million page views per day. In the following years, however, an outflow of users began to be recorded, which coincided with the increase in the popularity of NK.pl and Facebook.
Fotka.pl Fotka.pl
Fotka.pl decided to save themselves by escaping forward. With time began to transform in a classic dating site, while losing a more general social character (the change of domain from fotka.pl to fotka.com was also a symbol of this revolution). At the same time, the average age of website users also increased.
In fact, earlier it was mainly people up to 18 years of age – now over. This is due to a change in the profile of the site – we are less “social” and more “dating”, which results in attracting older users
–
Perhaps it was this decision that, unlike many other websites from the beginning of the 20th century, Fotka.com is still operating in 2023, although only as a dating application.
Epuls.pl, or good is the enemy of the better
If you are looking for a Polish site, which was the closest in terms of features offered to modern social platforms, it is undoubtedly Epuls.pl. Founded in 2002 by the Swedish company Pixelate Graphics (headed by Grzegorz Gorczyca), the portal was aimed primarily at young people, as evidenced by its distinctive graphic design.
Epulse Epulse
At the peak of its popularity, which was approximately for 2006-2008 the service had 3 million users (interestingly, they were mainly people from the Tri-City – even 40 percent), and every day it registered about 2,000 new accounts.
“I think it won’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that for many users Epuls is a second world. Or maybe just another dimension of the real one” –
In the technological sense, Epuls is a platform that enables people-to-people contact, but it is this contact, the mutual bond of thousands of people, that is all about. A mutual bond, I think, is the key and the answer to the question why Epuls users spend so much time together. They can talk, exchange opinions, argue. As in life. And we are trying to add more functionalities and develop this virtual world
– explained the founder of the platform.
The success of the website can be proved by the fact that that Epuls lived to see several language versions. In the years 2002-2005, its Swedish version was active, and in 2007, a German-language version was launched. There was also a Russian-language edition, although this was never officially launched.
Epulse Epulse
Epuls.pl was one of the first websites which allowed users to send private messages. The “photo battles” and the so-called clubs, i.e. equivalents of thematic internet forums. One of the unique features was the ability to personalize the profile. Epuls.pl allowed to create unique “presentations” – basic knowledge of HTML was enough.
Access to the site was free, but the developers were very quick to offer users of the so-called epulsar, i.e. virtual currency, for which we could buy e.g. additional emoticons or “advertise” the club we run. The price for 100 epulsars ranged from PLN 5 to PLN 10.
Epulse Epulse
And when it comes to money, it is worth adding that in 2005 Epuls.pl started cooperation with mBank, i.e. the first Polish internet bank. As a result, it was connected to the izzyBank website.
As with Fotka, there are problems here as well with the outflow of users started when Our Class appeared on the horizon, and later Facebook. For Epuls, the final nail in the coffin was the decision to completely redesign the layout and graphic design. In 2009, the website debuted in a completely new version, which was criticized by users.
Epulse Epulse
The “new” Epuls in the next 10 months lost about 700 thousand. active users. His slow agony, however, continued for several more years – the site was closed only on February 1, 2017.
Grono.net Grono.net
Grono.net – “elite” social networking site
The success of an online business can be determined by only one element that will distinguish a given project from dozens of others. This was somewhat the case with Grono.net. Founded in 2004 by three friends (Piotr Bronowicz, Tomasz Lis and Wojciech Sobczuk), the website stood out from the competition with its “elitism”. The user could not just create an account on Gronie – must have previously received an invitation from a person who already had an account on the portal.
As a result, for the first years of operation, the service was closed (or rather semi-closed), which had a positive impact on the level of discussion and the atmosphere prevailing in Grona. And it is worth remembering that at that time internet hate or trolling was no longer a niche phenomenon in the Polish network.
Grono.net Grono.net
The whole idea of Grona’s operation was based on a concept “social networks”. As a reminder: according to the concept of the American psychologist Stanley Milligram, there are on average six friends between any two people in the world (six degrees of separation or six handshakes).
In the case of Grona, each user was able to check the number of contacts between him and other users – this function allowed, among others, many people to find old friends.
– It was amazing that somewhere up to 30,000 users, almost everyone gave their phone when signing up –
It was then a network of closer and further friends. I wasn’t afraid to call a musician I didn’t know, citing the source from whom I had the number.
– recalled Fox.
The website community was focused around thematic groups called, yes, you guessed it – “in clusters”. Users could join different groups, but to create their own group you had to stay “grape”i.e. buy a premium account.
Grono.net Grono.net
At the end of 2005, the service already had over half a million users, the first million broke in 2007, and a year later the service boasted a community of almost 2 million users. In the same year, the owners of the website made a controversial decision to “open” Grona – from that moment, anyone could register on the portal and did not need an invitation. As a result, Grono lost its uniqueness and exclusivity, which many users did not like.
In 2008, the service began to lose users at a fast pace in favor of our class and Facebook. An attempt to save Grona was to copy a number of solutions offered by the competition, but this way turned out to be a mistake.
In July 2009, one of the site’s creditors filed for bankruptcy, but it was rejected by the court. What is delayed is not lost. Grono.net was shut down three years later – in 2012.
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Source: Gazeta
Mabel is a talented author and journalist with a passion for all things technology. As an experienced writer for the 247 News Agency, she has established a reputation for her in-depth reporting and expert analysis on the latest developments in the tech industry.
