WAYN

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WAYN (standing for Where Are You Now?) is a social networking website with a goal to unite travellers from around the world. WAYN has an Alexa Internet traffic ranking of 1,682^[1] and was launched in May 2003. It has grown from 45,000 to 4.1 million members in the last year ^[2].

1 Features
2 History
3 Popularity
4 Criticism
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Features

As with many other social networking services, WAYN enables its users to create a profile and upload photos. Users can then search for others, and link them to their profiles as friends. It is also possible to send and receive messages using discussion forums. Since it is designed for travellers, members are able to search for contacts based on a particular location. Using a world map, it enables a user to visually locate where each of their contacts are situated around the world. The service is thus intended to be used for its members to keep friends informed of where they are whilst travelling. WAYN is very popular in the UK where it has over 1.5 million members. It is also strong in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries in Western Europe, including the Netherlands.

[edit] History

WAYN was founded in 2002 in London and was presented to the public in May 2003 having secured financial backing from Stephen Pankhurst, the founder of the well known UK school reunion site Friends Reunited, which recently sold to ITV for £120M (plus £55M earn-out). WAYN initially grew through word-of-mouth and reached almost 50,000 members by the end of 2004. Following its relaunch in May 2005 it grew exponentially, reaching over 2.5M members by the end of 2005. As of 2006, there are over 225M contacts. WAYN has since been nominated for the Website of the Year contest in category Social Networks. WAYN is also one of the very few sites which didn't lose the impact of new subscriptions after introducing fees for taking advantage of the full membership service September 2004, making it one of the few premium social networking communities that has managed to become profitable. WAYN now has over 6.5 million members, growing by up to 20,000 members daily.

[edit] Popularity

Though not as popular as MySpace in the United States, WAYN.com has grown popular in over 220 countries being a global brand. While WAYN.com is not aimed at a particular age group, it is most popular within the 18 to 25 but also seem to have a strong position amongst the 35 to 45+. Members can find out who will be travelling at their next intended destination, at the same time as them. It has been featured across the national press in Great Britain as one of the Internet Phenomenon of the year.

[edit] Criticism

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When a user signs up for the WAYN service, they are given the option to import contacts from an online address book (such as Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and Gmail) by providing their username and password^[3] and send them repeated invitations to join WAYN. However, WAYN has been criticised by some users, who felt that it is made too difficult to unsubscribe from these "invitation reminders"^[4]. In addition, when a user signs up for a new WAYN account and is given the option to import contacts from an online address book, the link to "Skip this step" is in small print and easily overlooked, making it appear that importing addresses is a requirement rather than an option.

However, more improvements have been noted where members can delete their own accounts automatically directly from the Settings menu and it is now made very clear that internet users receiving invitations can now opt out easily from such emails, at the bottom of each correspondence. Pictures are also now being screened every day to ensure the site remains clean and neat unlike other online communities where adult pictures are being posted. "WAYN has also become an affiliate partner of the TRUSTe program as a key player in Privacy Policy, following best industry practice"