StudiVZ who? Facebook reigns supreme in Germany

The above chart says it all. After battling it out with local clone StudiVZ and the other social networks in the VZ networks group, Facebook has reigned supreme. Produced by Fitton & Maass Consulting, it shows that the U.S. social network has 64.4% of the market based on users who login at least once per week. StudiVZ claims just over 12% while the group as a whole sits at 32.7%. Thus Facebook continues to eat away at its local competitor’s market share. This, as Fitton & Maass points out, despite a German government minister warning the public not to use Facebook based on privacy concerns.

Facebook and StudiVZ have a long and controversial history, of course. The former sued the latter for copyright infringement (via California) with Facebook acusing StudiVZ of copying its look and feel. StudiVZ counter sued in Germany and eventually the two companies settled out of court with the German social network operator paying Zuckerberg and co an undisclosed sum as part of the deal.

And more intriguingly, it was reported at the time that Facebook tried to buy its local competitor but that the deal fell through because parent company Georg von Holtzbrinck was not satisfied with what Facebook was willing to pay for StudiVZ, which it had acquired for the equivalent of $134 million in early 2007. A mistake maybe?

Alas, the rest as they say is history.