Facebook Vs Renren.

We all know what social networking is, with the start of myspace and then the turn over to Facebook. but what is the rest of the world doing to talk to their friends? Facebook has over 600 million users world wide, so that must mean there is no competition?

 

Renren is the name of the social outlet in china. the layout and idea are very similar to face book. almost to the point you would think that REN REN stole the idea from face book. Outside of a few different application, that is almost true. The two main differences is how renren is used and the fundamental princaple; information should be free to very one. Renren is heavily monitored, the government has the power to take down any post or comments made. The government's goal here is to also limit the amount of outside information that comes into or even from the country.

 

Users of Renren are far more personal with there site, instead of looking and talking to friends they post about themselves, it seems to be geared to a more individualistic format. You are also praised for the work that you put up onto the Internet, teachers friends and family are much more likely to get involved off line about what you wrote online (a conversation started when you are face to face about what you wrote face to computer)

 

The industrial aspects are different as well. People don't use Renren to find a company they want to work with, it is strictly social. Not that business don't use Renren, it is just not how people find them (guess they use a phone book).

 

Renren has much more financial backing than Face book. This is because outside of private investors, which both have. RenRen is publicly traded in china and at the beginning of 2011 will start trading in the NYSE, will the extra money give them an advantage over Facebook?

 

Well i sure don't think so, over the last few years face book has almost dominated the world (outside china and Russia). even though Facebook has no plains to go public. Next year face book will buy up double the companies they got in '10, A rumored 15 companies that will not make them bigger but stronger a move which seems to be similar to another route taken by an Internet giant (Google)

 

Do to the rigid hold china has over the Internet there (you may remember the problems google had) facebook is unwanted. Renren currently has over 120 million users. And that's up from around 44 million a year and a half ago Face books Problem? free use. with over 450 million people in china using the Internet, because of its size alone this makes china one of the world’s largest Internet market. And i am sure that Facbook would like to be there but i don't think i will slow Facebook down at all, at some point they will have to network together and face book will be bigger, better and made in America.