LunarStorm, in

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

often shortened to Lunar, was a

commercial advertisement-financed

social networking website A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

for teenagers, which was also available in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

before 2007. "LunarStorm" was operated by a company called LunarWorks. According to the company's official statistics, the website had 1.2 million members in 2007, of whom some 70% were 12–17 years old. The website drastically dropped in popularity since then and in June 2010, Wyatt Media Groups (the owner of LunarStorm at that time) announced that LunarStorm would be shut down on 18 August 2010 due to lack of activity.

History

The predecessor to Lunarstorm was called "StajlPlejs" (i.e. "Style Place" transcribed to Swedish spelling), which started around 1996. It was created by

Rickard Eriksson Rickard Eriksson is a Swedish entrepreneur, known as the founder of an early social networking website, LunarStorm. Rickard was born 1974 on the west coast of Sweden in Varberg, county of Halland and still resides in that area. Eriksson attended s ...

as Europe's first digital online community. Lunarstorm officially opened on 1 January 2000, after Lunarworks had taken over StajlPlejs and decided to rename it after the username used at the website by Rickard Erikssons girlfriend. In 2001, LunarStorm had grown to over 600,000 members but still experienced economic hardships. After the beginning, LunarStorm was financed by banners and other advertising on the website, but this soon evolved to include more of pay-by-SMS services. An early example was LunarStorm's own pre-paid card "Vrål" ("Roar"). In 2002, "Kolla" ("Look" or "Check this out") was introduced which allowed users to visit LunarStorm from their mobile phones. In the same year, members were able to upgrade their membership to "pro" status and get unlimited access to a range of services for a fee. LunarStorm Pro was extremely popular among the member base and it improved the website's economic situation greatly. Another great source of revenue was LunarStorm's cooperation with other companies. An early business partner was OLW who sponsored "RajRaj", a party-oriented photo album ("RajRaj" being Swedish slang for party). But LunarStorm has through the years also cooperated with numerous other companies including

Arla Arla may refer to: * ''Arla'' (moth), a genus of moth * Arkansas Library Association * Arla, Greece, a village * Ärla, a village in south-eastern Sweden * Arla Foods, a large Scandinavian producer of dairy products ** Arla (Finland), a subsid ...

, EA Games,

Loka Loka () is a concept in Hinduism and other Indian religions, that may be translated as a planet, the universe, a plane, or a realm of existence. In some philosophies, it may also be interpreted as a mental state that one can experience. A primary ...

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

Aftonbladet ''Aftonbladet'' (, lit. "The evening paper") is a Swedish daily newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. It is one of the largest daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. History and profile The newspaper was founded by Lars Johan H ...

Sveriges Radio Sveriges Radio AB (, "Sweden's Radio") is Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcaster. Sveriges Radio is a public limited company, owned by an independent foundation, previously funded through a licensing fee, the level of which is d ...

and

Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe, ...

. In September 2006, the website style was changed. The change had already been introduced at the British sister site a few months earlier (May - June). In February 2007, LunarWorks bought 40 percent of the shares in Bilddagboken, an increasingly big competitor to LunarStorm. At the same time, LunarStorm replaced the "Kollage" service which allowed you to upload images for a fee with the free "Gallery", to compete with Bilddagbokens free picture upload functions. Eight months later, on 4 October 2007, the owners of LunarStorm announced that they had bought the remaining shares of Bilddagboken, as well as 57 percent of the online Swedish-English dictionary Tyda.se. LunarStorm, Bilddagboken and Tyda.se are now parts of Wyatt Media Group, owned by Sten Mörtstedt. Both the

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

and British branches of the website were closed down on 13 July 2007. On 13 December 2007, LunarStorm removed "Pro" from the website and made all the content free. Focus was instead put on a new function called "Club Lunar" where members got access to "exclusive offers" and "cool competitions". Lately, the popularity of LunarStorm has dramatically decreased which the owners explain with an increased competition from other social networking sites for young people in Sweden such as Bilddagboken. For example, the daily question that used to be answered by about 150 000 members per day and was used by polling institutes to study opinions of Swedish youth has now shrunk to about 10,000 - 12,000 daily answers, as of summer 2009. The number of users concurrently online went from about 100,000 to only 1,500 as of 2009.

References

External links

*
LS8.se
an attempt to revive LunarStorm {{Online social networking Swedish social networking websites Internet properties established in 2000 Internet properties disestablished in 2010 Defunct social networking services 2010 disestablishments in Sweden