Link to Outside Blog: http://techrice.com/2011/03/08/chinas-top-15-social-networks/

Today, I read an article about the social networking development in China, it shows me the diverse internet user groups and various social networks which have target different customer in China. There is no single social network can be dominant in the market as Facebook in the U.S. This must due to the large population in China and its great dispersion of wealth, as well as people have different purposes.

Renren.com leads China’s surging social-networking market with more than 160 million registered users, according to Analysys International in Beijing. Competitor Kaixin001.com has more than 93 million. Their edge over billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s service: a government that blocks Facebook access. “Our service is basically the same as Facebook’s, in terms of functions and features,” said Donna Li, a general manager at Renren. “We are more tailored to the China market.”Kaixin001.com’s core user base is white-collar workers, which is viewed favorably by advertisers.

For social networks from outside the country to capitalize on the network market in China, it is not easy. Take Facebook as an example, Facebook has a terrible track record with key Asian countries. They haven’t made much of a dent in India, South Korea or Japan, where their share of the local social network audience are in the low single digits. I truly believe that even if China opened its doors to Facebook, or Twitter, they still cannot occupy the biggest portion in China’s network market because Chinese are vested and pretty loyal to their existing social network site, and getting to switch to another social network site is very difficult.