Who is the king of the Chinese social network

Put forward this problem in fact some retarded, the industry people know, the answer should be QQ. However, the recent capital market has given a somewhat vague signal. On May 4, Renren was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and created two of the first: The world's first listed social networking site;

On the first day of the closing price, the company's market value of 7.12 billion U.S. dollars, in all of China's internet-listed companies to sit in the fifth place, ranked after Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba and Sina. This makes the old Internet companies, such as NetEase, Sohu, Youku, grand, somewhat embarrassed.

What kind of a company can anyone be so popular with investors? Yanggo, chief representative of the New York Stock Exchange's Beijing office, explained clearly: "As the world's first public-listed social networking company, a successful listing of similar companies in the United States, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, This has a high scarcity value in the capital market. In a word, investors regard Renren as China's Facebook.

However, there are still sober people who have voiced their objections. Robert Saigan, a Reuters Breakingviews columnist, points out that the underwriters ' IPO price for Renren shows that it has a 67 times-fold earnings ratio, while Facebook has a 35 times-fold earnings ratio in the gray market last year, and Facebook's revenues will double to $4 billion this year, And Renren is a loss.

In my opinion, Renren and Facebook are not comparable in terms of size, growth and market position. So, let's leave the hustle and bustle of the capital market and go back to the original point of the matter. What is a social network (SNS)?

In fact, the history of social networks and social networking is very long. The address Book of your phone, e-mail addresses, is a natural social network. QQ, MSN Chat, is one of the most typical network social. But these have not been labeled SNS, at least, they have never been seen as a stock concept, a capital market to vote the concept of money.

Over the past more than 10 years, countless internet companies have been unsuccessful in their social relations. Whether it was Murdoch's acquisition of MySpace, or the collapse of the 2007 Uuzone, and Renren behind a large number of candidates (happy net, watercress, 51), no one has achieved BR.

To make a simple distinction, social networks can be divided into strangers and acquaintances networks. The former's representative is the "century Jiayuan" of the dating site immediately listed, and the latter comes from a simple idea--moving relationships online. But what's the point of moving your network online? Or how do you motivate people to keep their social behavior on a website?

This road has come to this day, and finally has a more clear mode of operation, and Facebook is the epitome of this practice. Facebook's success is due to the relentless expansion of the founder Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) and his grasp of the internet ecosystem. Facebook, through its step-by-step evolution, tells people that social networking is not just a website, it can evolve into the infrastructure of the Internet. Facebook has infiltrated other sites, and it is like a looming meridian that has opened up previously irrelevant sites, allowing information to spread through relationships.

Expansion and Evolution should Mark Zuckerberg's highest goal. Today, Facebook's user size is horrifying, reaching 700 million and expanding. And, at almost every stage of development, Zuckerberg can find the accelerant and glamour of the Facebook rocket.

The early start of Harvard, Facebook's most compelling user factor is making friends, the starting point for all social networking sites. Since then, Facebook has evolved gradually to become the lifeblood and nerve of the Internet system: from open accounts, open application platforms, customized ads, to Facebook's credit currency, more and more users are attracted, and more and more developers and advertisers are making money from Facebook. , of course, also increasingly inseparable from this super platform. One obvious example is that Zynga, which develops games on Facebook, is even more profitable than Facebook. Its 2011 earnings are said to be expected to reach $1.8 billion trillion and profit margins of 35%. And for users, when you maintain and manage your friends on Facebook, you become more and more unable to get rid of it when you consume more time, energy, and more emotion.

So, in China, who has the strength to become the infrastructure of the Internet? In the area of shopping and E-commerce, this company is called Alibaba department. Ma repeatedly stressed that the Alibaba Department (Taobao, Alipay, etc.), to abandon the empire of thought, to do e-commerce in China's coal-water power system. And in the field of Internet advertising, such a company called Baidu. They exist in addition to making money for themselves and are also managing and serving a huge ecosystem.

And in interpersonal areas, who can be the infrastructure of China? It's still a suspense. No matter what, Tencent can not be bypassed by the huge things, after all, QQ im has more than 600 million active users, QQ space has nearly 500 million active users. Sina Weibo may also be a piece of the game.

Goldman Sachs released a report in late April, which mainly considered the strength of Sina Weibo. Goldman Sachs believes there is no clear-cut difference between social media and social networking the most likely outcome is that Sina Weibo, which ultimately serves as a social networking platform, has some superficial social networking factors, but is still a leader in China's mainstream social network.

To tell the truth, China's social networking site is too much, in addition to the four major portals of micro-blog, personal space, there are people network, happy net, watercress and a large number of candidates. We can look at the strength of various social networks from the point of sharing activity. Bshare and Jiathis are two plug-ins for social sharing in the country (you can use such plug-ins to share your favorite articles with a social networking site). In the two companies released in the April rankings, the top two are QQ space and Sina Weibo, and Renren, happy net all fall behind. Bshare more points out, QQ altogether has 4 product layout to bring the content into its platform, is QQ space, Tencent Weibo, QQ bookmark and Tencent friend respectively. These 4 platforms occupy the entire Bshare share button 41.47% share. and other companies, basically under 10%.

Various figures show that Chinese social networking sites may not be monopolized by one company. To be like Facebook as the internet interpersonal relationship of "water and electricity", the candidates are Tencent, Sina Weibo. As for Renren, it depends on the choice of netizens and the voting of the capital market.

(Huang, the author of this article, Citic Press New Media Division general manager. Master of Science in Chinese and scientific philosophy, Tsinghua University. He has been working in the media such as caijing, economic Observer, Oriental entrepreneur and Sohu, and has 10 years of experience in financial and scientific reporting. Wired: The media dream of the digital age, information soot and the great conflict. The article only represents his personal opinion. You can contact him via Sina Weibo (Http://t.sina.com.cn/pjhuang). )