These Surfers Do It Their Own Way

 

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Western-style social-networking sites, by contrast, mostly concentrated on cities. "Most people are interested in making friends in their own vicinity, people they might meet in person," says Kaiser Kuo, head of digital strategy at Ogilvy China. The main exception so far is Xiaonei, which began as a service for university students in December 2005 and has since grown to more than 4.5 million users around the country. That's more than Facebook's English-language China network, which since October has attracted 155,000 users (it's adding 10,000 per week), but still small relative to the number of national users.

The prospect of tapping into the potential of China's social-networking trends has gotten the attention of investors, who pumped a billion dollars in venture capital into Chinese Internet ventures between 2001 and 2006, according to BDA. "More venture capital from Silicon Valley is in China today than anywhere else in the world," says BDA's Clark. And the country is early in its Internet trajectory. Whereas about 60 percent of the populations of the United States, South Korea and Japan own a computer, only 13 percent in China own PCs. "Innovation doesn't have to be inventing radical core technologies; there's entrepreneurial innovation too," he says. "Now I find myself giving seminars asking, 'Will China be the new California?'"

With Sarah Kliff in New York

© 2007

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Member Comments

  • Posted By: ZenZuu @ 08/06/2008 1:22:53 AM

    Wow I had no idea that this was started by a person from China.

    The headquarters are in Vegas.

    Huge party there this friday at the Palms. 8/8/8

    Get a QuickStart with ZenZuu here.
    www.ZenZuu.com/QuickStart

  • Posted By: assured @ 04/25/2008 8:14:51 AM

    Seems this is the latest contribution to come out of China and it's set to put MySpace and Facebook way deep into the back of the woods because of the 80% advertising revenue that it's sharing with the people that join.

    What If You Could Be Paid JUST for having friends on your MySpace /Face Book Accounts...??

    'I found a site that does EXACTLY that. Its a social network but they PAY YOU to build your friends list.

    Best part its 100% FREE and will never cost you a dime!

    CLICK ON BLUE FLAG IN TOP RIGHT HAND CORNER OF PAGE ONCE YOU GET ON THE SITE

    www.zenzuu.com/mpress.

  • Posted By: assured @ 04/25/2008 8:14:11 AM

    Seems this is the latest contribution to come out of China and it's set to put MySpace and Facebook way deep into the back of the woods because of the 80% advertising revenue that it's sharing with the people that join.

    What If You Could Be Paid JUST for having friends on your MySpace /Face Book Accounts...??

    'I found a site that does EXACTLY that. Its a social network but they PAY YOU to build your friends list.

    Best part its 100% FREE and will never cost you a dime!

    CLICK ON BLUE FLAG IN TOP RIGHT HAND CORNER OF PAGE ONCE YOU GET ON THE SITE

    www.zenzuu.com/mpress.

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