myYearbook

myYearbook

myYearbook is a free Internet social network service similar to other social networking sites.

The site's user base is over 90% American, with 75% of its new memberships from the United States and 25% from other

countries. myYearbook has 7.8 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. According to Nielsen NetRatings, myYearbook was one of the

top ranked destination sites for teens ages 12 to 17 in September 2006.

MyYearbook

URL www.myyearbook.com
Type of site social network service
Registration Yes
Owner David and Catherine Cook
Created by David, Catherine, Dusty, and Geoff Cook
Launched Spring Break 2005
Revenue $4.1 million
Current status Active

History

myYearbook was initially created by two high school students, David and Catherine Cook, and their older brother Geoff, during

Spring Break of 2005. Catherine persuaded Geoff, who founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a Harvard dorm in 1997, to

invest $250,000 for their project. At the launch of the site in April 2005, Dave was a junior and Catherine was a sophomore

at Georgetown University; the project was only activated for their school in suburban New Jersey, Montgomery High School. 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 social-networking sites, it is free to register and there are no fees for users.

In November of 2005, the forum Mystery of the Zenhex merged with myYearbook, adding several thousand members and more than

doubling the traffic it received. Zen, the creator of Zenhex, was running low on funds and could not support Zenhex's rapidly

growing member base. The increasing 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 merged with myYearbook. After

the merge, myYearbook experienced a very rapid growth rate; it grew 44% from November 2005 to December 2005 according to a

Media Metrix report. Zenhex has remained as the forum pool for MyYearbookers & "hexxors," original members of the Mystery of

the Zenhex, with varying topics and forum areas. Zenhex, though, still regards itself as its own site, and prefers to be

associated separately from myYearbook. Despite this, access to the forum can only be attained by passing though many

myYearbook pages, with hopes to draw people to the myyearbook part of the site as opposed to zenhex.

Features
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.

On September 26, 2006, myYearbook announced the launch of its pimp site, which users from various online social networks can

use.

On November 29, 2006, myYearbook added a new feature, "Battles" - for which users can compete against each other and their

friends.

On July 2007, myYearbook changed the website's layout, and added new features like myMag, and videobattles.

On April 14, 2008, myYearbook added the new feature "Owned", which has users purchasing other users' photographs with the

myYearbook currency of "lunchmoney".

On August 1, 2008, myYearbook added the new feature "Games", which has users playing games and earning the myYearbook

currency of "lunchmoney".


Source: wikipedia.org