A decade ago, everyone had an account there. Our class is making history
This is the end of an era on the Polish Internet. The Nasza Klasa website, the first popular social networking site, is disappearing. According to the name, it was supposed to enable finding old classmates or students, but it quickly became a social networking site enabling chatting and commenting on photos of friends not only from school days.
The website was launched on November 11, 2006 by colleagues from the university: Maciej Popowicz, Michał Bartoszkiewicz, Paweł Olchawa and Łukasz Adziński. At the peak of its popularity, in 2010, it had 14 million active users.
– The idea was born by accident. We had a lot of them, but I especially liked this one – with one click, send a message to all your high school friends, find each other, stay in touch. We were a tight bunch. And a website was created for myself, for us, for people from our class – recalled Maciej Popowicz.
It was supposed to be a website for colleagues, maybe for friends of friends
The website gained its first 100,000. users only in a short 3 months. The popularity surprised my university colleagues, who assumed that it would be a success if their peers from the faculty and, later, perhaps some of their friends, set up accounts. They did not have any serious expectations for the project, the initial capital of which was PLN 200 – that's how much they paid for the domain and server sharing. This atmosphere of disbelief, in which joy was intertwined with concerns about how to adapt the website to the needs of a growing group of users, was recalled by NK spokeswoman Joanna Gajewska:
– On the first day we had 300 users. What joy! After a few, it becomes a thousand. Then came the first attack on the portal, on December 26, 2006. Panorama then published a few-second snapshot about Nasza-klasa, along with some short information about its existence. A few minutes later, over 5,000 people tried to register on the website. people. The server couldn't stand it and went down – she said.
Just a year after its launch, the website was valued at approximately PLN 15 million. In 2008, the majority stake purchased by the Latvian company Forticom cost as much as PLN 200 million!
Our class did not give up on Facebook without a fight
Our class was not just about service, it was a new dimension of social life for many people. They could find friends they had not seen for years and who until now could only be traced through the phone book or mutual friends. Throughout the length and breadth of Poland, class meetings were held in restaurants and clubs, because the renewed friendships went beyond the virtual dimension.
When Facebook slowly started to become available in our country, Our Class did not want to be left behind. Its owners copied some American solutions, trying to give them a “local” tone. For example, the website was enriched with a board where users could comment on any topics, paste photos or links. It was nicknamed “Sledzik”, but this idea did not catch on at all. While no one can imagine Facebook without a newsfeed, i.e. a board that takes up most of the screen, the users of Nasza Klasa assessed its introduction very negatively.
In general, the popularization of Facebook was the end of Our Class. Maybe at the beginning, around 2010, some users used both websites, but ultimately the American player emerged victorious. Our Classroom changed owners several times, but no one had any idea what it could actually be used for.
On July 27 at 11:59 p.m. the website will disappear from the Internet for good.
What about users' personal data?
The administrator will take care of the data of users who have not closed their accounts yet. The data of several hundred thousand users cannot be deleted in a few minutes, the process may take up to several months.
Some options on the website were paid. Anyone who has not used the funds deposited may apply for a payment in a special procedure.
