The Dutch social network Hyves has just implemented a new feature, which helps the family and friends of those who have passed away maintain their connection.
From now on relatives have the possibility to request that the Hyves profile of their deceased loved ones becomes an online memorial. The ‘In Memoriam’ status makes it clear for all Hyves users that a Hyves profile is of a deceased user. The date of death is mentioned prominently in the profile and the age of the deceased user remains the same in relation to the date of death. It is also ensured that reminders about birthdays or other interaction with the deceased user can’t occur.
Although this is a good idea, at EU-Startups we are thinking that this probably not save Hyves from a slowly occurring death from the stiff competition – mainly with Facebook. It is no wonder that the Alexa chart below shows a downward trend for the daily reach of Hyves in the last 6 months.
Hyves was founded by Koen Kam, Floris Rost van Tonningen and Raymond Spanjar in 2004 and was acquired at the end of 2010 by TMG (Telegraaf Media Groep). The Dutch social network has grown to an immense 10.6 million members already, despite competition with Facebook and Myspace.
By the way: You can find out about other interesting startups from The Netherlands in this list.
