Analysis of the four stages of social network development in China

Today, social networks have gone deep into people's lives, and social networking sites have opened up another gateway to the Internet, introducing the concept of early social networking to the Internet and creating SNS for social networks. Today, social networking services have become one of the hottest topics on the Internet and have become the hottest area in the investment circle. Looking back on the development of SNS, looking back on the development of SNS, from the foreign myspace, Facebook, Twitter to China's happy net, Renren and other pan-entertainment SNS application, and then to the current China's road to the micro-bo, rice Chat (micro-bo), micro-letter, and even the vertical type of SNS application form, The concept of social networking services is deep into the essence of the Internet.

In a sense, the social network is actually derived from the needs of social networking, based on this idea, the Qing Branch Research center that the development of China's social network mainly presents four stages, as shown in the following figure:

The development of social networks in China mainly presents four stages

Early social networking prototype BBS era

From the deep evolution of social networks, social networks should evolve from the BBS level of the WEB1.0 era. Compared to the e-mail form, BBS pushed the social network forward a step, the point to point form into a point opposite, reduce the cost of communication. In addition, compared with the instant communication and blog and other light social tools, BBS dilution of the individual awareness of the information multi-node, and realize the aggregation of decentralized information. At this time, Tianya, Mop, the West Shrine Hutong products are the typical enterprise of the BBS era. From the VC/PE Focus, 2006 years ago, the capital focused on BBS and blog form of social networking products, but later on, the development of such enterprises are not satisfactory.

(ii) The era of recreational social networking

Through the early conceptualization of the six-degree separation theory era, social networking by virtue of the concept of entertainment has made considerable progress. Foreign social products are driving the deep development of social networks. 2002, LinkedIn was founded in 2003, the use of rich multimedia personalized space to attract attention to the establishment of MySpace; 2004, the replication offline real relationships came to the online low-cost management of Facebook, these excellent social networking products or service forms, has been following the "low-cost substitution" principle of social networks, and has made great strides in reducing the time and cost of social networking.

Throughout China, the development of foreign social networks, China's social networking products have emerged, such as the 2005 set up Renren, the establishment of the net in 2008, and even the 2009 launch of the Sohu White Society, opened the Chinese social network screen. This time spans roughly 2006-2008 years more than three years, VC/PE in here experienced a big investment, 2008 entered the slow stage of investment.

(iii) The age of micro-information social networking

The launch of Sina Weibo has opened the curtain of the era of China's micro-information social network. August 2009, Sina launched the microblogging products, 140 words in a timely manner, and according to the user's value orientation and interests to the multi-dimensional division of user groups, users through referrals and their own search methods to build their own circle of friends, this product quickly aggregated a large number of users, of course, also attracted many operators (such as Tencent, NetEase, Shanda) followed. This model also pushes the broader social network to investors ' horizons.

In addition, with the development of mobile Internet, micro-information social products are gradually combined with mobile features such as location service, which appear the mobile client products such as rice chat, micro-letter, simple and so on. In addition, we can not ignore is the Solomo era, social functions gradually become standard products, has been unable to accurately distinguish the scope of social products.

(d) The era of vertical social networking applications

The application of vertical social networking was not created at the end of the three social networking times, but with three other times. At present, the vertical social network is mainly related to games, E-commerce, classified information and so on, which can also be called social network to explore business model of the beneficial attempt. The research center predicts that vertical social networking will be the main direction for the future development of social networks.

As social networks continue to evolve, social networking products are constantly seeking ways to differentiate themselves from "incremental entertainment" to "constant sex". At present, the social network gradually expands to the mobile phone platform domain, with the handset universality, the carry-on, the timeliness and so on characteristic, utilizes each kind of friends/Instant Messenger/Mail transceiver and so on the software, enables the handset to become the new social network the main carrier.