Empowering the Netherlands: The Vision Behind our National Social Network

Hyves, The rise and fall of Social Dutch Culture in 2010

Hyves was a famous Dutch social networking site that was founded in 2004. At its peak, it had over 10.6 million member accounts. However, the rise of Facebook led to a decline in Hyves' popularity. In 2010, Hyves was acquired by the Dutch media company Telegraaf Media Groep (TMG) for €43 million. TMG made efforts to revamp the site by introducing new features and expanding into mobile, but it was not enough to compete with the likes of Facebook.

Hyper Growth in 356 Days

My years at Hyves started at the peak and ended at the downfall. We designed national campaigns that were adopted by millions of users. We competed with Facebook and Builded features that are sometimes made faster and better, such as the 'Photobrowser'. We intergraded daily news on the homepage, and, in some cases, Hyves had so much success that we needed to change the algorithm to keep the site clean and simple. 2010 was the most exciting year of all, and of course, you can't compare it with social media in 2023 and the world's broad penetration; this was only in one of Europeans' smallest countries, the Netherlands.

Advertising and Subscriptions on Hyves

Monthly Goldmember subscriptions for €5,- 

Yes, 13 years ago, we used the membership modal we see in everyday business. Hyves 'Goldmembership' offered unique features, such as; Stats insights, who visited your profile and how many times: more Friends, more smileys and more photos to upload.

Memberships are next to the significant – paid brand campaigns and banner advertising for companies. At this point, I worked 50% of my time in the Creative Studio, where we collaborated with Advertising Agencies to create campaigns. I recall that the sales team was around 20+ people, but it was a long time ago.

Facts

😋 850 Milion Krabels sent.
😛 8% of all Dutch people online were spent on Hyves.
😝 The Partysquad was the most played band: 8.472.829 times in one year.
😜 Gerard Joling was most popular with 291.359 friends.
🤪 Hosted data, 2 Petabytes. That was insane for a small country such as the Netherlands. 
😍 2.1 Milion pictures were uploaded in a single day.
🔥 275 Million pages visited in a single day.