social networks

Facebook hits 500 million users

22
Jul
facebook logo

World’s largest social network service Facebook hits 500 million users according to a post on their blog.

Facebook: 500 million strong 

Despite difficulties about privacy concerns, Facebook has gained almost 250 million users compared to one year ago. 

However, the world's leading social network has to find other ways to maintain its growth since some markets like the US seem to be saturated.

That's why Facebook recently announced its willingness to go local and grow in Asian countries, notably in China (even if it's still blocked!), Russia, South-Korea and Japan where it isn't the leading social network.

In China, Facebook competes with local social networks such as Tencent QQ, Renren Network (former Xiaonei) and Kaixin001.

Facebook launches new application

Facebook also unveils a new application namely "Facebook stories" allowing users to share stories that highlight the benefits of Facebook in their life.

For example, Ben Saylor, a high school student, who used Facebook to organize a community effort to rebuild a theater in Kentucky, after it was damaged by floods in May.

Next objective for Facebook is clearly to reach 1 billion users.

Chinese private social network P1 doesn't want to expand abroad

28
May
P1 private social network

Yu Wang, P1.cn founder & CEO, announces today at the 6th edition of CHINICT in Beijing that the Chinese private social network has no intention to expand abroad.

"It's a small world..."

Founded in 2007, P1 is a private social network. Contrary to typical Chinese networking sites like Renren Network and Kaixin001, it only targets a small audience: affluent and urban people who need to expand their network. In order to provide a trusted environment, P1 membership can only be obtained through invitations, insuring members to connect with aliked people.

P1 is doing fine in China...

The network currently consists of 700,000 individuals in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Their business model is based on advertizing, ecommerce (private sales) and offline events (parties, social activites...) exclusively reserved to P1's members. Since the network wants to remain a close community, there is no need to advertize. In addition, Yu Wang says that P1 focuses only on China and there was no plan to expand abroad. The other internationally well known private social network is aSmallWorld.
 

Kaixin001 wants to become more than a gaming social network

27
May
Kaixin001 gaming social network

Kaixin001, one of China's largest and fastest growing social network site, hits 80 million users, Hans Tung (Kaixin001's Board Director) says at the 6th edition of CHINICT which takes place on May 27th & 28th 2010 in Beijing, China.

CHINICT is a conference which gathers every year all the actors of tech innovation and entrepreneurship in China.

A successful Chinese social network

Famous for launching social games on a social platform, Kaixin001 has had an astronomical growth very quickly online since its foundation in 2008. The company thinks that the key thing of any SNS site is the social relations on the site : friends and family who are all on the site and who can share headlines, etc.  Gaming tries to build things that users would welcome, users would enjoy.

For example, Happy Farm, the most famous game in the platform, hit more than 15 million active users in 2009. Even after this peak, they are still 10 millions this year. Kaixin001's success in China can also be explained due to the permanent blockage of other social network webstites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

A Gaming social network, and then ?

Kaixin001 needs some time for 3G adoption as well as smartphone adoption. But the Chinese social network does not want to be known solely as a gaming platform. It is now getting itself into the travel sites business as well. They also seem ready to open to third-party. Nevertheless, despite its growth, Kaixin001 doesn't think that time to IPO has come yet...

Google Buzz Video Presentation with English Subtitles

10
Feb
google buzz

google buzz is the new attempt from google to enter the social networks sector. it's right within gmail (so you need first a gmail account to use it), and it seems well thaught.

google buzz works also with twitter, flickr, picasa, google reader and other feeds.

Of course (but is it a good idea?) it is not linked with facebook! the king in the world of social networks. i guess when you want his thrown, you don't help him increase his authority.

here under, the text of the video, for those of you who don't have flash insalled.

 

  • The first thing we all do when we find something interesting is share it!
  • More and more this kind of sharing takes place online
  • google buzz is a new way to share photos, videos, updates, and more...and start conversations about the things you find interesting
  • it's built right into gmail and uses the friends you've already made
  • there is nothing to set up you're automatically following the people you email and chat with the most
  • you can chose to share publically with the world or privately to a small group of your closest friends
  • buzz goes beyond status messages, it automatically pulls images from links, plays videos inline, and let's you flip your photos the way there are meant to be seen. Big and Fast
  • you can connect other sites you use like Picasa, Flikr, Google Reader and Twitter so your friends can keep up with what you're doing around the web
    all in one place
  • buzz makes sure you see the stuff that matters most
  • the best part about sharing is getting responses to your posts, buzz sends this comments to your inbox to make sure you don't miss them, you can respond right from there to keep the conversation going
  • if you want to make sure your friends see something, you can send it straight to their inbox by adding them with an AT reply
  • you sometimes see recommended buzz from people you are not directly following
  • buzz identifies posts that may interest you, or are popular among your friends
    and recommends them to you so that you don't miss out
  • and it works on your phone, so you can keep up with what your friends, or people near you, are buzzing about
    when you are out in the real world, you usually wanna say something about where you are, buzz makes this easy
  • so try it out, click the buzz link in gmail to get started
    or visit buzz.google.com to learn more

     

 

SNS in China, Everyone Increases... but Facebook

28
Aug
facebook xiaonei kaixin kaixin001 china traffic

Every social network system is growing in China... except facebook, because as we told you before, facebook is blocked in china.

When I see the hard time google is having to gain market shares against baidu (which has about 70% market share here in china), I think facebook is not likely to get back in the competition. When facebook will be accessible again, it will be too late. Specially because chinese users won't go from xiaonei or kaixin001 to facebook if they already have their contacts in these two sns.

 

Facebook, to get back in the game, will have to buy one of these sns (maybe xiaonei, because xiaonei is a copy of facebook, so users won't have difficulties to adapat to facebook's interface).

Another thaught is... if these sns become bigger and stronger, won't they try to compete with facebook in other countries?

Once more, local players are doing better in china than international ones (I know, with a little help ;o) but still, i think that if you want to be in the chinese market... the best thing you could do is ... coming to China.