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MyYearbook
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since December 2006. |
- The correct title of this article is myYearbook. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
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| URL | www.myyearbook.com |
|---|---|
| Type of site | social network service |
| Registration | Yes |
| Owner | David and Catherine Cook[1] |
| Created by | David, Catherine, Dusty, and Geoff Cook |
| Launched | Spring Break 2005 |
| Revenue | $4.1 million[2] |
| Current status | Active |
myYearbook is a free Internet social network service similar to Friendster, Facebook, and MySpace.
The site's user base is over 90% American[3]. 75% of its new memberships are from the United States and 25% from other countries.[4] myYearbook has 1.7 million members, 150 million page views, and 5 million unique visitors. U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital are providing the $4.1 million in funding.[2] According to Nielsen NetRatings, MyYearbook was one of the top ranked destination sites for teens ages 12 to 17 in September 2006.[5]
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myYearbook was initially created by two high school students, David and Catherine Cook, and their older brother Geoff (post-graduate), during Spring Break of 2005. Catherine persuaded Geoff, who is an internet small business entrepreneur, to invest $250,000 (USD) for their project. At the launch of the site in April 2005, Dave was a senior and Catherine was a junior; and the project was only activated in local suburban New Jersey. The site was inspired by the typical yearbooks sold in high schools, but was intended to not only keep records of students but also allow them to keep in contact with one another. The site slowly grew to have a user base numbering in the thousands. As with other sites, it is free to register and there are no fees for users.
In November of 2005, zenhex.com merged with myYearbook, adding several thousand members and more than doubling the traffic it received. Since then, myYearbook has been growing at a very rapid rate; it grew 44% from December to November among high school and college students according to a Media Metrix report.[6] Zenhex has remained as the forum pool for MyYearbookers & Hexxors (original members of the site The Mystery of the Zenhex), with varying topics and forum areas. Zenhex, though, is still its own site, and prefers to be associated separate from myYearbook. The two sites merged when Zen, the creator of Zenhex, was running low on funds and could not support Zenhex's rapidly growing member base. This jump in members caused the site's servers to overload and create a series of notifications known as Database Connection Errors, or DBCEs . In order to keep Zenhex alive, Zen (admin and partial creator of the site) merged with myYearbook.
The profile of pages on MyYearbook, deviating from other social networking services, can contain (most fields are optional) things like age, location, mood, interests and others.
In addition to the profile features, users can also customize their profile to a pre-made theme or create their own using the generator, as well as add a music playlist with audio files from the digital locker.
The site has added a number of features that are commonly found on other social networking sites, except with different names.
In the Quizzes and Pimp sections of the site, there is a collection of various graphics and user-generated material that can not only be used at myYearbook, but also on other social networking sites.
On August 29, 2006, myYearbook announced its content deal with CliffsNotes. The service adds free content from CliffsNotes for all MyYearbook users.[7].
On September 26, 2006, myYearbook announced the launch of its pimp site, which users from various online social networks can use.[8]
On November 29, 2006, myYearbook added a new feature, "Battles" - for which users can compete against each other and their friends.[9]
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Whilst myYearbook claims to make the need for hardcopy yearbooks redundant, it is not hard to appreciate the value in hardcopy books - not least because websites come and go, leaving no guarantee that a yearbook will be available online in 20 years.
However, online yearbooks offer substantial price savings over hardcopy books, with the myYearbook service free of charge (though of course this is subsidisied by advertising). Online yearbooks also enable media such as audio and video files to be included in the yearbook, something which is clearly not possible in traditional paper. As a web page is of no definite length, members of a yearbook are not limited by paper size.There is also an ecological argument for online yearbooks - energy, paper and other raw materials are not wasted in producing a books which will sit on a shelf most of its life, perhaps to be dusted off once every few years.
Other companies now offer best-of-both-worlds service, using a web-based yearbook to create PDF files which it then prints into paperback and hardback books. However, because the website is geared towards producing a PDF, the site should not be considered a full social networking site such as myYearbook, Facebook or myspace.
Other yearbook companies use web-based systems to produce their yearbooks, but generally only the editors of the yearbooks can view the full yearbook online.
Although recently a part of Myyearbook, Zenhex is essentially its own site, and likes to stand away from myYearbook because of this. The Mystery of Zenhex, 'Zenhex' or 'The Hex' for short, is a forum-based website, which includes other features such as poetry portal, humour sections, and a quiz builder section.[1] The rapidly growing member base of the increasingly popular forum website caused the site's servers to overload and create a series of annoying notifications known as Database Connection Errors, or DBCEs. This is the reason that Zenhex's creator ('Zen') merged Zenhex with myYearbook, which had more appropriately sized servers for Zenhex to use.
Some Averages from Zenhex
24,701.84 posts per forum, 9.86 replies per thread, 2,513.44 posts per day, 314.96 new members per day,
Created in 2002, Zenhex is approaching the fifth year of existence.
- ^ http://www.myyearbook.com/press/release8/
- ^ a b http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/devlin/7486
- ^ http://www.myyearbook.com/press/release3/
- ^ http://www.myyearbook.com/press/release1/
- ^ http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=171656
- ^ http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8214.asp
- ^ http://www.myyearbook.com/press/release3/
- ^ http://www.myyearbook.com/press/release2/
- ^ http://www.myyearbook.com/press/release8/