Michiel . van Vlaardingen

Facebook is catching on everywhere for some time now, but in the Netherlands Hyves is still the  major player.  I had a Facebook profile for some time, mostly for exploring it’s application platform. A lot of people I know have some presence over there for some time. However the last few months I see a change:  people are starting to use it!     People I know are starting to join groups, updating their status and uploading photos. And, very important:  my sister has an account, meaning it is way past the early adoption by tech-interested men.

I believe it’s just a matter of time before  Facebook will become more important than Hyves.   First of all:  most people past 16 have a world outside The Netherlands too.   Furthermore,  Facebook doesn’t look like a highschool project gone-wrong, so you can actually connect with someone above 30 without silently laughing at them.   While at Hyves it really looks very very wrong if a parent or a teacher joins.   So I believe Hyves will probably become  for kids even more than it is now and it’s empire will sink like the previous dutch profile site that seemed unbeatable:  cu2.nl.  (do you even remember it?)