Tuenti

Tuenti Technologies, S.L.U.
Founded 2006
Headquarters Madrid, Spain
Founder(s)
Key people
Industry
Owner Telefónica
Employees 200 (2014)
Slogan(s) "La compañía móvil que se lo cuestiona todo" ("The mobile company that challenges everything")
Website www.tuenti.com
Type of site VoIP, Instant messaging and Social networking service
Users active-users-and-15-million-registered-users
Available in Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Galician, Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, English, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Slovak, Czech[1]
Launched 2006
Current status Active

Tuenti is a mobile operator brand owned by Tuenti Technologies, S.L.U, a Spain-based tech company, that focus in providing a cloud experience through their own application and their website to their customers.

Tuenti was created in 2006 as a social networking service. Between 2009 and 2012, Tuenti was the most popular social network in Spain, with over 15 million registered users.[2] Tuenti's namesake social network was referred to as the "Spanish Facebook".[3]

Currently, in Spain Tuenti offers mobile telephone services accesible anywhere in any device by making it accessible through the cloud. In Latin America, Tuenti ships its brand through TelefonicaAbranches in those countries, exploiting the young market by offering simple and affordable plans.mong other services common to mobile carriers, Tuenti offers free VoIP calls and instant messaging through its own messaging app.

Company history

Tuenti was founded as a Social networking service in 2006 by a group of friends in Spain. Zaryn Dentzel, Felix Ruiz Hernandez, Kenny Bentley, Adeyemi Ajao and Joaquín Ayuso de Pául were they key people who worked together to bring Tuenti to life.[4] Dentzel's first experience in Spain was in a students exchange program that took him to Cabeza del Buey (Badajoz). Bentley, the lead programmer, came to Spain after having worked in social networking in the United States.[5] In the beginning, the project aimed to university students, but due tu its success, they opened to everyone, although it was only possible to register with an invitation.[6] Years later the register was opened to everyone, in attempting to make it available globally, with the only extra requirement of giving a phone number. Zaryn Dentzel has chronicled the story of Tuenti in a book called El futuro lo decides tú.[7]

Although the name sounds similar to the English word twenty, it actually comes from "tu [id]enti[dad]", meaning "your identity".[8] The service was originally targeted at the Spanish market, but from 2012 they made it globally available.[9] The organization has reached more than 250 employees from more than 21 countries around the world.[10]

Google Zeitgeist's 2009 listed Tuenti as the third fastest-rising global search. Google's 2008 Zeitgeist report listed Tuenti as the year's fourth fastest-rising global search term,[11] and during 2010, Alexa Internet ranks the site as the sixth most visited in Spain.[12] In 2011, it was estimated that more than 15% of the web traffic in Spain was on Tuenti, which at the time had in Spain more traffic than Google and Facebook together.[13][14]

On August 4, 2010 the major telecommunication group Telefónica acquired 85% shares of Tuenti for a total of 70 million euro, becoming its largest shareholder.[15]

In the same year, they start the development of a light virtual mobile network operator which worked completely under the Movistar (Telefónica) infrastructure. Later, in December, the service yet in developing state is released to the users of the social network under the brand "Tu".

Tuenti announced a big renovation of its social network platform on 11 July 2012. It featured a new focus on mobile devices, availability in 12 new languages, a new mobile app called Tuenti Social Messenger and its attempt to become a global social network by officially supporting registers out of Spain. It was a failure. After a massive loss of active users a big change on the company's drift occurred and its virtual mobile operator became the main focus.

From November 6, 2013 Telefónica owns 100% of the company after an agreement with the remaining shareholders.[16]

Tuenti launched its mobile operator brand in Mexico, Peru and Argentina in 2014.[17] After this movement the brand was present in four countries, offering competitive data bundles and developing a cloud-based strategy. Tuenti has completely transformed its business from a social network to a mobile telecommunications provider.

During 2014, the company reported that their mobile operator represented 98% of the income.[18] The company attained a global turnover of 21 million euro, 25% more than the previous year.[19][20] Although it was still not positive, this year's financial report was the best since the launching of their mobile business and the acquisition by Telefónica.

Mobile operator (in Spain)

Tuenti
Developer(s) Tuenti Technologies
Initial release 2006
Operating system
Type VoIP, Instant Messaging
License Proprietary
Website www.tuenti.com

History

Pre-launch phase

Tuenti launched Tu as a developing project in 2010 supported by Telefonica, which was the largest shareholder back then, aiming to have influence in the young market that the social network had at that time.

Signing up for Tu was free of charge during the initial launching, but it had certain limitations: it was only accessible by invitation (an invitation from a social network user who already had signed up was a requirement, the company sent invitations to random users with this purpose), once an invitation was received users could only sign up for a new number, number portability from another provider was not possible, also, the service was only available on prepaid. The provisioned SIM card was posted nationwide free of charge.

First plans launched consisted in weekly, 14 days long or monthly plans which were focused in calls and SMS, as well as free access to the social network after recharging and free use of TuentiSMS. Offered plans changed multiple times through this phase and just before the final launch their main focus became bigger data plans.

Final launching

On 15th February, 2012 the company left behind the pre-launch phase of the project and launched Tuenti Móvil for social network users, dropping the name Tu used for the pre-release phase. This official launch came accompanied by brand new plans including competitive data bundles, invitation system was no longer required to access the service and a new advertising campaign within the social network to promote the service.

Mobile operator (overseas)

Supported by Telefonica and taking benefit of new telecommunications regulations, the brand Tuenti was launched in some Latin-American countries, starting by Mexico.[21] The brand was promoted as a whole-new mobile operator to hit the market, although it works completely based on the Movistar (Telefónica) infrastructure. From the beginning, the offer aimed to a young market: by releasing simple plans (called "Combos") at competitive rates. Both, strategy and offers are slightly different in Latin-American countries to Spain due to technical limits, among other reasons.

Even though it might differ at strategy and operational level from Spain, overseas customers can still take advantage of the mobile application to manage their mobile accounts. From this approach, the philosophy remains the same: offering control for all your services, instant messages and calls for users of the app, VozDigital calls (availability in some countries, call destinations and some functionalities might vary).

Mexico

June 26, 2014 was the key date for the first official announcement of the international launch: The brand Tuenti started its operations in Mexico. There was a celebration at Campus Party Mexico, giving away for free 2,500 SIM cards for users to provide feedback.[22]

Argentina

Tuenti replaced the brand "Quam", also owned by Telefonica on November 18, 2014. Plus, from that moment, users would be able to access Tuenti's mobile application to watch and manage their services.

Peru

On October, 2014, Peru became the third country in which the brand was released. Peru was also the first country apart from Spain in which VozDigital was launched, enabling customers to make calls (but not to receive them) to any national fixed line or mobile destination through almost any device and just an internet connection.

Ecuador

The brand was launched on May 29, 2015, with an advertising campaign named "Libérate" (free yourself).

Social network

Tuenti was the most popular social network of Spain[23] and it featured all the tools common to social-networking sites. It allowed users to set up a profile, upload photos and videos, connect and communicate with friends. Many other utilities, such as a chat application, the ability to create events and tagging locations and places were also offered in the beginning. Unlike similar social networking sites which feature banner advertisements, Tuenti opted out of these traditional forms of obstructive and invasive advertising, in order to respect the privacy of the user.[24][25][26]

Social network cease

After users leaving the social platform, the removal of some essential functions of the social network and have made a strategy refocus in a different industry, keeping the social platform alive made no sense.

On February 1, 2016 confidential information was leaked[27] from old employees of the company who claimed that social network closure was imminent. Just a month later, the company launched and update to their mobile application and website that removed all the remaining social networking features, excepting the chat platform. It also enabled users to download their data for certain period of time, inviting users to download and try the new features such as VozDigital, using their own current phone number to make free calls.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Tuenti in your language". 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2013-07-08.
  2. ↑ A huge thank you to our 10 million active users and 15 million registered users!
  3. ↑ Jiménez Cano, Rosa (2007-12-10). "Tuenti, ¿el Facebook español?". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-04-29.
  4. ↑ "Un camino por recorrer, un nuevo socio". 2010-08-04.
  5. ↑ Sabate, Jordi (2008-04-10). "Zaryn Dentzel, director ejecutivo de Tuenti, la mayor red social online en castellano". Consumer Eroski (in Spanish).
  6. ↑ Elola, Joseba (2008-12-14). "O estás en Tuenti o perdiste el tren". El País (in Spanish).
  7. ↑ "El futuro lo decides tú (You Decide the Future)".
  8. ↑ "Tengo una pregunta para Tuenti" (in Spanish). 2008-11-27. Archived from the original on April 27, 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  9. ↑ "Tuenti in your language". 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2013-07-08.
  10. ↑ CincoDias, Ediciones (2011-05-12). "Tuenti eleva su plantilla más de un 36% desde enero". Cinco Días (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-04-29.
  11. ↑ Ahmed, Murad. "Palin beats Obama in Google's 'zeitgeist' rankings". The Times. 2008-12-09.
  12. ↑ "tuenti.com - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
  13. ↑ http://zenware.net/blog/?p=183
  14. ↑ http://www.trecebits.com/2011/10/05/el-15-del-trafico-web-en-espana-pasa-por-tuenti/
  15. ↑ "Telefónica compra el 85% de la red social Tuenti por 70 millones de euros".
  16. ↑ "Telefónica se hace con el 100% de Tuenti".
  17. ↑ Alonso, Santiago Millán. "Tuenti avanza en su expansión y lanza en Argentina su servicio móvil". Cinco Días. Retrieved 2016-04-29.
  18. ↑ "Pioneros en la telefonía del futuro, seguimos creciendo y mejorando resultados | Tuenti Corporate". corporate.tuenti.com. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  19. ↑ País, Ediciones El (2014-01-30). "Tuenti perdió 23 millones en sus dos primeros años como filial de Telefónica". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  20. ↑ Cid, Mikel (2015-04-13). "Tuenti, aunque en pérdidas, ya no es un lastre para Movistar, ya tienen 240.000 clientes". www.xatakamovil.com. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  21. ↑ http://corporate.tuenti.com/en/blog/New-challenges-for-2015-Lets-go-for-it
  22. ↑ "Prueban chips de Tuenti en Campus Party". Periódico am (in Spanish). Retrieved 2016-04-28.
  23. ↑ Tesón, Nuria (2008-04-10). "Una red social española compite con Facebook entre los estudiantes". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 2009-05-20.
  24. ↑ Paul Iliffe (14 November 2011). "Tuenti: la red social más privada, cada vez más móvil". Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  25. ↑ Sebas Muriel. "Argentina, nuestra tercera operación en Latinoamérica".
  26. ↑ Zaryn Dentel (11 July 2012). "Presentamos el Tuenti del futuro". Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  27. ↑ "Tuenti cerrará su red social: sus 20 millones de usuarios no son rentables. Noticias de Tecnología". El Confidencial. Retrieved 2016-04-27.

External links

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