What Makes China's Top 4 Social Networks Tick? Kai Lukoff is co-founder of TechRice, a China tech blog.
Follow Kai on Twitter or Sina Weibo. Mark Zuckerberg may have come to China, but Facebook is unlikely to enter anytime soon. Neither Facebook nor the Chinese government are interested in a messy compromise on freedom of expression (all Chinese networks are censored), especially after the Facebook-fueled revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Instead, China's social media scene is different from anywhere else: Four homegrown networks are vying for the mass market.
Renren, a faithful copy of Facebook, is China's leader and is planning for an IPO soon. In addition to the top four, China also has a “long tail” of social networks that are more specialized — just for children, gamers or lovers. Renren: The Leader Renren is like a miniature Facebook with a mean streak and a quest for monetization. As one social network operator (who asked to remain anonymous) described it, "Renren is all about business. 3 Reasons Why Tencent’s Qzone, the Largest Social Network in China, is a Failure « China Social Games. Qzone, “the largest social network in China,” and Tencent’s other SNS (QQ Campus and Xiaoyou), are failures for three reasons: Squandered Opportunity: Chinese internet giant Tencent was enviously positioned to dominate social networking, but blew its chance. QQ Campus failed. Xiaoyou is far behind the competition. Qzone does not reach any new demographics. The Site’s Design and Features are Lousy: The Qzone website is an unintuitive eyesore.
Does this mean Tencent will soon collapse? Qzone is Tencent’s “Windows Vista” Tencent with Qzone is like Microsoft with Windows Vista: a near-monopolist that thrives despite a terrible product and lack of vision. Do prosperous companies still produce failures? Microsoft remains massively profitable despite releasing a terrible OS and missing out on all the new innovations (mobile, mp3 players, search, and social networking) that its competitors have seized upon (Apple, Google, and Facebook)
. #1 Squandered Opportunity. Research on Social Network Sites. Chinese Social Network RenRen Seeks Big IPO. RenRen, the "Facebook of China," is seeking an IPO that could place the company's market value at $5.1 billion.
The company makes its IPO today, and will aim to raise up to $743.4 million, according to Bloomberg, an increase from the $584 million originally planned. RenRen will offer 53.1 million depository receipts for $12 to $14 each. The RenRen IPO hits two tech sweet spots: China and social networking. Two-thirds of the Chinese population is not online, but there are still over 450 million users. What's more, RenRen would be the first major social networking site to go public in an investment environment hungry to get in on the trend. The proceedings hit a pothole when the head of the IPO committee at RenRen, Derek Palaschuk, resigned over allegations of accounting fraud at Longtop Financial Technologies Ltd. Both TechCrunch and the Financial Times, have pointed out some notable red flags in RenRen's offering. China’s TenCent Announces Almost $1B In Virtual Goods Sales For 2008. Today Chinese social network TenCent announced its unaudited fourth quarter and annual earning results for 2008.
TenCent reported 2008 annual revenues exceeding $1 billion, an 87% year-over-year increase from 2007 revenues. Of that figure, $719 million was generated by sales of virtual goods (called "value-added services" by TenCent) to Internet users of the service. Another $204 million of the 2008 revenues were generated by sales of virtual goods to users in the Mobile category. Internet virtual goods sales for 2008 represent a 95.5% year-over-year increase from 2007, while Mobile virtual goods sales for the same period had increased 73%. Only $120 million dollars of TenCent's 2008 revenue is accounted for by online advertising. TenCent's fourth quarter numbers primarily reinforce, and to some degree explain, the overall trends at play in the annual numbers.
China social networking sites statistics 2009 (updated) Top 10 Best Social Networking Sites in China. China is a world in itself and so are the Chinese cyber world.
While rest of the world generally sticks to Facebook, Orkut and MySpace etc, Chinese have their own Social Networking Websites. According to a study carried out by CR-Nielsen from 1st December till 28th December, 2008, the following Social Networking Sites are the top 10 best social networking sites in China: 1. 51.com User Stats: 14 million unique visit per week 51.com (hereinafter referred to 51), established in August 2005, is the largest social network service provider in China. 51 is jointly invested by Sequoia Capital, SIG Asia Investments (SAI), Giant Interactive, Intel Capital, Redpoint Ventures and other renowned international enterprises and venture funds. 51 is committed to offer its users stable services to store their personal data such as photo and blogs, and to provide facilities to let them easily communicate to each other.