Sosyomat

What did it do?

Sosyomat was a tag-based social network launched in 2006 by Pilli Network, the Turkish owner of sites such as hafif.org and bildirgec.org. Users added friends, connected through shared interests, wrote comments on topics and could create their own pages. A new version in 2007 added groups run by users under their own rules, status messages and personal blogs.

Why did it shut down?

According to Hasan Yalçınkaya, one of Pilli's founders, the site's advertising revenue had been far below its hosting costs for the past few years, and Sosyomat was opening a significant hole in Pilli's budget every month. Increasing advertising revenue or building a new revenue model required investment, but the company had no resources to spare for it. In the assessment of Webrazzi, the Turkish tech news site, Facebook's outpacing of almost every local social network was the main reason Sosyomat lost users. The closure announcement also noted that nobody left at the company understood the site's code. The site closed on 20 September 2012.

The story

In the summer of 2006 Facebook was still unknown in Turkey. At the time Pilli Network, known for user-generated content sites such as hafif.org, bildirgec.org and 22dakika.org, was working on a new project: Sosyomat, a tag-based social network. The first start-up profile published by Webrazzi, the Turkish tech news site, in August 2006 was also about Sosyomat. Users added friends, connected with people who shared their interests, wrote comments on topics and could create their own pages.

The new version that arrived in 2007 changed the site considerably. Users could set up public, approval-only or completely private groups and run them under their own rules. Status messages showing what friends were doing, a follow feature and personal blogs were also added. According to NTV, Sosyomat was among the top three friendship and social networking sites in a vote by Webrazzi members choosing the best of 2009.

But Facebook's rapid spread in Turkey left most home-grown social networks behind. Hasan Yalçınkaya, who became Pilli's sole owner through a sale of shares between the partners in 2011, announced that the company was abandoning the model in which it shared advertising revenue with writers and would rewrite its infrastructure from scratch. Sosyomat's fate became clear a year later.

In September 2012 visitors to the site were met with a note saying Sosyomat would close on 20 September. Users were asked to back up their posts and collect their friends' contact details. The note also contained a striking admission: “Nobody left at Pilli understands Sosyomat's code.” In a statement to Webrazzi, Yalçınkaya explained that the site's advertising revenue had fallen far below its hosting costs over the past few years and that Sosyomat was opening a significant hole in Pilli's budget every month. Investment was needed to raise revenue, but those resources did not exist.

Sosyomat's story shows how quickly the home-grown social networks that built their own communities in the pre-Facebook era fell silent once a global platform began meeting the same need on a far larger scale.

Lessons for founders

• On a community site that relies on advertising revenue, losing users rapidly erodes income while costs stay fixed.
• If you meet the same need as a global platform, make your difference clear and defensible.
• When the team that knows the product breaks up, the product becomes technically unsustainable too.

Sources

1. The end of a legend: Sosyomat.com is closing (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2012-09-10)
2. ntvmsnbc is the best again (in Turkish) (NTV, 2010-01-20)
3. Pilli Network's new venture: Sosyomat (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2006-08-10)
4. Sosyomat's new version and first screenshots (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2007-08-03)
5. Pilli Network sheds its skin (in Turkish) (Webrazzi, 2011-06-17)

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