the war of the social networks

as Facebook welcomes its 200 millionth user (a country in and of itself), thought it would be appropriate to write a post on social networks from the perspective of a user.

since facebook started some odd years ago, i’ve been a rather faithful follower, and seen it make its share of stumbles during its time of growing pains.

recently, i’ve become more involved with chinese social networks, and have been impressed at the ability these sites have to quickly amass large number of users who are heavily engaged, from polls to discussion boards to groups.

as with all things these days, these chinese social networks have the bearings of the “chinese way.” discussion boards are much more active given the popularity of already existing bbs boards, which can be found at any university and any major website to discuss everything from current events to handicraft hobbies.

playing on the mentality of chinese gamers and their comfortability with virtual worlds, some chinese social networks have also adopted the platform of virtual economies. in a great article featured recently on techcrunch, it talks about how chinese social networks have “virtually” out-monetized its american counterparts, including facebook. the article also goes on to talk about how part of the growth of chinese social networks is attributed to applications which virtually force you to invite friends, a concept that would not bode well with users here.

however, what has always impressed me about facebook was their dedication to the individual user. even as they grew, they tried their best to never make feel like you were just a number. my experience with chinese social networks, however, has been less than satisfactory.

a simple request to change my name due to a technical glitch in their system went unanswered, and fell on deaf ears (with multiple messages in english and chinese).

while this fact does not detract from the success of these networks, i wonder how their neglect of the user on an individual basis will affect their global expansion (sans china). to become truly global requires an understanding of different marketplaces which i think facebook is more well-positioned to accomplish than its counterparts.

nonetheless, i’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about the activities and trends of chinese social networks going forward.

thoughts?