The idea to set up the portal was born in the head of Maciej Popowicz, currently an entrepreneur, and then – in 2006 – a student of computer science at the University of Wrocław. Popowicz turned to Paweł Olchawa, Michał Bartoszkiewicz and Łukasz Adziński, who, working together at home, created a website under the name moja-klasa.pl.
The idea was simple. The website was to serve as a place to find old friends from school. Our-klasa.pl displayed a list of schools ordered by voivodships and allowed to subscribe to the list of students or teachers of a given institution. Of course, it also allowed you to browse the list of already saved people, making it easier to find your friends.
The idea itself was the result of a need. I wanted to be able to contact friends from high school in a simple and effective way and reconnect with people from elementary school
– explained Maciej Popowicz in an interview for the website
It cost PLN 200. But she conquered the Polish Internet anyway
Our Class was definitely not the first social networking site in Poland. You can even say that it was created relatively late, in November 2006.
At that time, social networks were also in abundance abroad. Facebook took its first steps (still under the name TheFacebook.com) more than two years earlier, Myspace was still a year older, and the American website Classmates.com, which was the prototype of Our Class, was established almost exactly 11 years earlier (in November 1995). However, the Polish Internet then became Polish portals, and the idea of Our Class was exceptionally liked by Internet users on the Vistula.
The success of the website surpassed the wildest expectations of its creators. On the day of opening, the first 300 people registered on our class, a few days later the number of users exceeded a thousand. And that was just the beginning of a long road. Slightly more than a month after the launch of the service, during the Christmas break, a short mention of Our Class appeared on TV Panorama, which of course caused a sudden increase in the popularity of the portal.
The creators were not prepared for several thousand new people who wanted to set up accounts on the platform at the same time. The servers of Our Class simply refused to obey, which happened many times later. For the extremely modest budget of PLN 200, which the creators invested in buying a domain and renting server space, these numbers were already very impressive. Especially since the founders did not spend a penny on advertising.
On the first day we had 300 users. But joy! After a few – already a thousand. Then came the first attack on the portal, on December 26, 2006. A few seconds’ snapshot about Our-class appeared in Panorama, a few short information that it is there. A few minutes later, more than 5,000 people tried to register on the portal. people. The server couldn’t take it and crashed
– described years later the press spokeswoman of the time, quoted by
Our Class is the king of Polish social media. Competitors had to tuck their tails
The following months were for our class a time of extremely rapid growth in popularity and, at the same time, dynamic development of the portal. In February 2007, just over three months after the launch of the website, the first 100,000 users had accounts on the portal. people. It didn’t take long for more users to arrive. The news about our interesting place was spreading among Polish Internet users instantly.
Our Class quickly began to seriously threaten competing portals in the Polish network, stealing their Internet users. After just a few months, the portal had its first million active users, and after a year from the start of operations, as many as three million. This is a result that all other portals in Poland could only dream of – Our Class has thus become the absolutely most popular social media portal in our country. and, among others Thanks to this, she began to attract more and more attention, also in the media.
Our-class.pl portal https://nk.pl/blog
“We still feel like students who are far from white collars and ties”
The creators apparently still did not realize how quickly their student project grew into a very serious business. Key decisions for the website were still made in a friendly atmosphere “over a beer”, while the German investment fund European Founders became seriously interested in Our Class. The fund, which already had in the American eBay, he bought back one-fifth of the shares in Nasz Klass for PLN 15 million.
Young inhabitants of Wrocław – who donated PLN 50 each to launch the website – suddenly became millionaires. Anyway, one of the youngest in Poland. Effect? First of all, the creators finally found a substantial amount of cash for renting office space, purchasing equipment and further development of the site. Secondly, the media became even more interested in Our Class, writing about the success of young Poles.
Until now, all plans were made during meetings over beer. Recently, we have felt a great responsibility for what we do. We don’t realize yet that we manage millions. Now the real business begins
– said Maciej Popowicz in an interview with in September 2007.
The creators of the platform at that time were just setting up their new office in a two-level apartment in Wrocław. New computers and new employees appeared there. – We want to hire some IT specialists. I still feel weird when interviewing candidates. We still feel like students who are far from white collars and ties – Paweł Olchawa told the portal Wrocław Moje Miasto at the time. At that time, he himself was still preparing for the last exams before graduation.
Our Class – 13 million active users photo: screenshot from http://web.archive.org
As expected, Our Class began to gain new users even faster. The years 2008-2011 were a golden time for the platform. In December 2008, two years after its launch, the Polish social network already had 8.5 million users. For comparison, at the same time, the Polish version of Facebook only 670,000. In March 2009, Our Class was visited by almost 9.5 million people a month, and two months later by over 11.5 million. Then the growth slowed down, but the portal was still slowly gaining new people active on the platform. At the peak of popularity, in 2011, there were over 12 million active users (NK itself boasted 13 million), and registered accounts at least a little over 14 million.
The Polish Internet has opened up to the world. Young people started looking at Facebook
Along with the growth of business, the initial idea that guided the creators was lost. Our Class ceased to be a portal for finding friends from school, but gradually became a multi-level platform for communication with other Internet users. And the novelties may have allowed to attract more people, but they often irritated the faithful users of the website.
In June 2010, the biggest image change of Our Class took place. The portal changed its name to NK.pl, which only confirmed the break with the old idea of business development towards a multi-level social platform. A lot of new things came out then. built-in NKtalk communicator, e-mail and finally “Śledzik”, which is very disliked by some people, i.e. the equivalent of a Facebook card with user entries (feed).
Our Class users were given the opportunity to publish their own thoughts and comment on other people’s posts. The portal still retained its “Schools” tab, but it was already lost in the crowd of other, previously added – e.g. “Auctions” (bookmarks for trading on Allegro) and “Forum”. NK was becoming a platform for “everything” that annoyed users. In addition, micropayments, virtual currency (Eurosponges) and games appeared, which again caused a storm among NK supporters.
Facebok vs Our Class Marta Kondrusik
In March 2011, NK finally added the “Cool” button, which was inspired (to put it mildly) by Facebook’s “Like it!”. Interestingly, the American giant added this button less than a year earlier, but it quickly made a sensation, even appearing as a fashionable print on T-shirts. NK’s attempt to repeat this success, instead of admiration, caused a wave of criticism on the Internet, because it was another proof that NK is not only trying to imitate Facebook, but is becoming its copy.
Young people turned away from NK in favor of Facebook
However, the creators had no choice, they had to develop Our Class with new functions to be able to take up the fight against Facebook, which was pushing in Poland. The latter’s global offensive meant that even loyal NK users were more and more willing to look for the popular overseas portal. Facebook accounts were set up primarily by young people, because not only was it fashionable, but with the help of Facebook you could even add friends from abroad.
Over time, it became clear that Mark Zuckerberg’s portal would catch up with and eventually defeat Our Class. Facebook has been developing extremely dynamically in the Polish network. Only between September 2009 and January 2010 it doubled the number of users in Poland (from two to four million). And it was still growing in strength, taking over the users of Our Class. In May 2010, Facebook already had 6.5 million active users, and in August as many as 8 million. A little over 4 million less than NK.
While Facebook jumps ahead this year within range, Nk.pl has been popular for several months at just over 12 million real users. The portal founded by Mark Zuckerberg currently has as many users in our country as there were users of Nk.pl (then operating as moja-klasa.pl) two years ago. Will the recent trend in the reach of these websites continue in the near future and Facebook will catch up with Nk.pl?
he wrote in October 2010
The predictions came true after just over a year. In November 2011, the Polish version of Facebook for the first time recorded more active users than NK.pl. (11.7 vs. 11.6 million).
When everyone had time to get acquainted with their high school friends again and come to the conclusion that they did not want to watch them outside the Internet, it turned out that Our Class had nothing else to offer them. And as the largest social network in Poland, it should have. So what did the greatest geniuses of the Polish Internet do? They started copying western services. First, they created their own microblogging service, which users quickly hated (Śledzik), then they mimicked Facebook’s Like!
– he wrote in November 2011
NK.pl – Facebook login photo: screenshot from http://web.archive.org
The following months saw a gradual decrease in the number of NK users. In 2012, the portal had 11 million active users, but in 2014 already 7 million, 3 million in January 2015 and 2 million in November. At the end of 2014, the service was bought by Ringier Axel Springer Polska, but it was too late to save NK. Sinking NK showed that it takes a razor in 2016, introducing the possibility of … logging in with a Facebook account.
The following years are just a slow death of the former king of Polish social networks. NK.pl was still operational, but it was hard to find any friends from school there. The vast majority of them have long moved to Facebook and other social networking sites from across the ocean. In May 2021, adding new accounts to NK was blocked, and in July the portal was finally closed.
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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.
