Similar but less high-profile news: the once biggest hungarian social network site, iwiw.hu is shutting down tomorrow.
Launched in 2002, by 2006 it had pretty much every hungarian internet users signed up who could be bothered by such sites. T-Mobile/Deutsche Telecom acquired it for 4 million euros in 2006 and at the time it seemed unthinkable that it would lose its momentum.
As a result, Hungary was one of the very last countries for Facebook to overtake the local competition, but eventually people with international friends started to sign up for Facebook too and the network effect kicked in: for the past 1-2 years iwiw.hu was in a free fall and one month ago they announced that they would pull the plug completely.
Launched in 2002, by 2006 it had pretty much every hungarian internet users signed up who could be bothered by such sites. T-Mobile/Deutsche Telecom acquired it for 4 million euros in 2006 and at the time it seemed unthinkable that it would lose its momentum.
As a result, Hungary was one of the very last countries for Facebook to overtake the local competition, but eventually people with international friends started to sign up for Facebook too and the network effect kicked in: for the past 1-2 years iwiw.hu was in a free fall and one month ago they announced that they would pull the plug completely.