Not Losing Facebook in China

XIAONEI.COMdoes not just look like Facebook, the booming social-networkingwebsite. As well as borrowing its design, it has also lifted itsstrategy and transplanted it to China. It is not alone. All the big“Web 2.0” sites—those that let people share information, collaborateand link up with friends—have many Chinese knockoffs. YouTube,the video-sharing site that is now part of Google, has over 200copycats in China, about 10% of them backed by venture capital, saysIsaac Mao, an internet investor and a Chinese blogging pioneer.

And nowonder, since most Web 2.0 sites do not have official Chinese versions.So enterprising start-ups simply copy the ideas and graphics, andlocalise them to suit Chinese tastes. The Chinese market is now sosaturated that it is much harder to raise money than it was a year ago,says Gary Wang, the boss of Tudou—asite known as the “Chinese YouTube”. This is a good thing, he says,because it means investors are being much more discriminating.

The surge ofinterest has created some problems, however. There is not enoughbandwidth or data-centre capacity to keep up with demand, says KaiserKuo, director for digital strategy at Ogilvy China, an advertisingagency. This makes some websites painfully slow to use. Another problemis that traffic does not flow smoothly between the networks of ChinaTelecom and China Netcom, the two fixed-line telecoms operators. Manyfirms deal with this by setting up “mirrors” of their sites.

Culturalcompatibility is much less of a problem, given the extent to whichChinese society is built on personal connections, or guanxi.Online social-networking is a logical extension of such relationships,says Allison Luong of Pearl Research, an internet consultancy.

Some Chinese start-ups, such as Anothr.com and douban.net,are now seeking customers outside China with English-language websites.Others hope to do deals with foreign Web 2.0 firms. One of Mr Mao'sinvestments is in Wealink,a Chinese site inspired by LinkedIn that has around 1.2m users. It hasattracted the attention of the original LinkedIn, and the two firmshave discussed a tie-up. “Who knows?” says a smiling Mr Mao. “Maybe inthe future we'll see Wealink buy LinkedIn.”

中国web2.0网站：抄袭不丢脸

社交网络和视频分享网站迅猛发展

校内网并不只是看起来像发展迅猛的社交网站Facebook，它直接将后者的模式移至至了中国，连网页看起来都一模一样。像这样的网站中国有很多，所有大的web2.0网站–包括可以使人们分享信息、协同创作或是与朋友互相链接的网站在中国都有仿制品。根据中国的互联网投资家和blog先驱毛向辉的说法，被google收购的视频分享网站Youtube在中国有超过200个模仿者，其中的10%拿到了风险投资。

无疑，多数的web2.0网站并没有中文版本，于是，许多中国初创企业的创业方式仅仅是复制国外web2.0网站的创意和页面，并通过调整使它们适应中国人的口味。据有”中国Youtube”之称的土豆网的老板王微说，现在中国web2.0市场是如此的饱和，融资相比起一年前已经困难了许多。”这是好事”，他说，”因为这意味着投资者的风险辨识能力正在增强。”

但是，大量的关注也随之带来了一些问题。一家广告公司，奥美中国总裁郭怡广说，现在的带宽或数据存储已经难以满足需求，这使得一些网站变得非常慢。另外一个问题则是电信市场的两家垄断公司–中国电信和中国网通间”互联不互通”的问题，为了解决这个问题，许多网站都设立了”镜像”。

考虑到中国的社会即是建立在人际交往–也就是”关系”之上，社交网站在中国几乎不存在什么”文化兼容性”的问题。”在线社交网站是对于’关系’的一种合理补充。”互联网咨询公司Pearl Research的Allison Luong如是说。

一些中国的初创企业，如哪吒和豆瓣，正在通过英文版网站吸引中国以外的用户。另外一些则指望最终能同国外的Web2.0企业发生交易。若邻网是毛向辉的投资项目之一，这家网站从LinkedIn那里得到灵感，目前已经有了约120万个用户，它已经也引起了LinkedIn的注意，并与之就并购事宜进行过协商。”一切都说不准，”毛向辉微笑着说，”说不定将来我们会看到若邻把LinkedIn给买下来呢！”