MyVIP

myVIP is an earlier popular Hungarian social network, it started in 2006 as the second of its kind. Although iWiW was very popular then, myVIP also could collect a lot of users in no time. However, Facebook took over the social network market in Hungary too, and myVIP also got deserted. And, considering that iWiW shut down with a lot more visitors than myVIP in 2014, it's a wonder that myVIP is still up.
== History ==
The site started on April 8, 2006, and grew insanely quickly. Number of users reached 500,000 in just 52 days, no matter that registration was bound to invitation. The 1 millionth member registered after 7 months, the 2 millionth in less than 2 years, and by mid-2009 it had 2.5 million profiles.
It is not easy to find up-to-date information about the number of registered users, but, if we consider the case of iWiW, we can assume that it increased until 2010, when a quick decline started. The highest profile ID is a bit above 4,600,000 but some profiles have been deleted.
In 2014, people report that the once popular myVIP is now deserted, hardly anyone logs in regularly. New users still seem to be registering, even in 2016, but they don't really share content and are probably not too active.
Interesting that Epicenter Market Hungary Kft, that bought myVIP and other stuff from Generál Média, then later Marco Polo Magyarország Kft, that took Epicenter's portfolio, kept/keep running the site, however, it's probably not making much profit. On the one hand, myVIP is a bit more aggressive in showing ads than iWiW. On the other hand, it was never as popular as iWiW. And iWiW was shut down in 2014.
All in all, we should presume that myVIP won't stay for long. And as it used to be a central point of Hungarian internet, it must be preserved.
== Status ==
=== The site ===
The site seems to be generally stable. Some bugs appear, but staff is – surprisingly – responsive, and usually fix the bugs.
Since 2015-12-16, according to a support mail, "There is currently ongoing maintenance on our site, therefore unfortunately not all functions are available, also the login may show problems sometimes." The – fortunately – only visible problem is that some comments don't appear properly under the images. As of 2016-01-24, this hasn't been fixed yet.
There is a recurring problem that sometimes users' friend listing doesn't work, shows empty pages instead.
UPDATE: It turned out that profiles starting from ID 4,500,000 are currently only partially archivable, the profile pages of existing users return error 500. It means that profile pages of users registered after 2013-03-30 12:21 CET are – currently – impossible to archive (images and friends lists are usually saveable, though). (That is approx. 90,000 users, but usually with little content.) As of March 2017, this problem seems to be fixed.
==== Shutdown? ====
#byevip IRC channel, 2016-07-29:
júl 29 10:25:55 <lazlo> hi guys
júl 29 10:26:07 <lazlo> i see you save myvip
júl 29 10:26:22 <lazlo> i apreciate it
júl 29 10:26:38 <lazlo> if you not finished i wanna warn you
júl 29 10:26:57 <lazlo> i heared something bacause i work there
júl 29 10:27:25 <lazlo> not 100 % but managament want to kill myvip in 1 month
júl 29 10:27:51 <lazlo> boss like "nobody uses myvip, why run it?
júl 29 10:32:55 <lazlo> good luck an thank you
júl 29 10:32:58 <lazlo> !
Unfortunately the user left before we could get further information from him.
=== The operators ===
According to myvip.com/impresszum.html, the site is operated by Epicenter Market Hungary Kft. (on behalf of UK-based but apparently Hungarian company Epicenter Market Limited) and World Web Data Kft. However, it seems that myVIP was passed from Epicenter Market Hungary Kft. to Marco Polo Magyarország Kft. This is suspected for three reasons:
* the impresszum has been updated so on other websites formerly run by Epicenter,
* Marco Polo claims it has those websites, including myVIP, in its portfolio since 2015-05-12,
* epicenter.hu is down since like that time (last Wayback capture).
Epicenter made good profit, but probably because its other, successful websites. Marco Polo hasn't sent in its first balance sheet yet (as it's a newly founded company).
World Web Data, which is assigned to replying user requests (besides the built-in support system on ugyfelkapu.myvip.com whose recipients are unknown), is a company offering hosting, development and marketing services. It seems to be responsible for technical aspects of running myVIP and other Epicenter Marco Polo websites. In 2015, it changed its name and website to SAS. It's been in a bad financial situation and it seems to become even worse.
== Archiving ==
Most of the archive of myVIP is accessible through the Wayback Machine; if you know the user ID, you can use a URL like http://web.archive.org/web/myvip.com/profile.php?uid=1146123.
For the bulk archive files, see the table below.
 Status table
Content 	Saved by 	WhenIf an account was deleted before this time, we couldn't save it.	Archives
User range 1 – 108,000 	user:bzc6p 	second half of 2015 	,
User range 108,001 – 4,499,999 	ArchiveTeam DPoS 	2016, mainly first half of it 	
157 special user profilesNeeded special attention, due to having a long friends list, which still may not be saved completely.	user:bzc6p 	March 2017 	
User range 4,500,000 – 4,599,999 	user:bzc6pWas also (partially) saved by ArchiveTeam, but that archive is not complete due to problems of myVIP's side that time, so a rerun was necessary.	March 2017 	
User range 4,600,000 – 4,649,999 	user:bzc6p 	March 2017 	
User range 4,650,000 – 	Not saved (yet – but isn't really meaningful anyway) 	 	
Clubs 	user:bzc6p 	March 2016 	
Profile and club avatar thumbnails 	Discovery: ArchiveTeam DPoS, download: user:bzc6p 	 	,
Also, an index of users has been built by user:bzc6p, which will be made available in some form when necessary, until that please use myVIP's search.
;Notes
== Sources ==
*http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyVIP
*http://hvg.hu/tudomany/20130906_general_media
Category:Social networks