For our German readers, here is an analysis of the Facebook launch in Germany and an interesting chart of the growth in visitors for various social networks in Germany (by the Financial Times Deutschland):

Das soziale Netzwerk Facebook hat den erhofften Katapultstart in Deutschland mit der Einführung einer deutschen Sprachversion Anfang März nicht geschafft. Für das gesamte erste Quartal weist das Marktforschungsunternehmen Nielsen Online für Facebook lediglich 1,2 Millionen Besucher und damit 26 Prozent mehr als im Vorjahreszeitraum aus, als Facebook nur mit einer englischen Version vertreten war und außerhalb der Internet-Szene noch weitgehend unbekannt war.

Read on: Netzökonom : Facebook verpatzt den Deutschland-Start

Facebook vs. StudiVZ

To summarize the author’s point of view: Facebook’s growth in Q1 2008 in comparison to Q1 2007 is too slow (+25,6%) and the visitors count is still too low (1,2 million) to be a thread for the competitors like StudiVZ (growth: +18,9%; visitors: 6,0 million). However, from a customer’s point of view, Facebook is no competitor to StudiVZ. Most students I know (and I’m still a student) have a StudiVZ account and now get a Facebook account in addition, because in Facebook they can manage their international contacts and their contacts outside their students life.

Facebook vs. MySpace

However, MySpace is a competitor to Facebook – it’s global, it’s independent of education and it’s just for fun as it is Facebook. MySpace had (in Germany) 4,7 millions visitors in Q1 2008. In comparison to Q1 2007 this is a decrease of 8,9%!

Facebook vs. OpenSocial

From our point of view there is no alternative to Facebook. Facebook is the only vital platform-as-a-service provider in the consumer-related social network market. Of course, OpenSocial is also an option with great potential, but the actual situation is that there is no success story of an OpenSocial implementation, yet. And from my point of view, Google isn’t the right driver for this market. It reminds me of Microsoft trying to be the leading Internet company during the last years. Both, Microsoft and Google haven’t the appropriate corporate culture to be the innovative driver in the social network market.

Forecast vs. Reality

Maybe the future proves me wrong – or you do! Have a good time!