China SNS in Three Words: Moblie, Interest Graph and Open

Facebook’s legendary IPO show invites us to dig deeper into this topic again, the influence surely has traveled across the Atlantic from streets to China. In a recent discussion on China’s SNS development, Cheng Binghao, CEO of kaixin001.com made some good points. As a leading SNS platform targeting the particular group of white-collars, kaixin001 (meaning “happiness” in Chinese) still see this field with an optimistic attitude.

Future Belongs to Mobile Internet

Cheng believed that Facebook’s approaches to mobile Internet had just begun, and there would be more to expect. He also believed that with the popularity of smart phones in China and the exceptional advantage of data processing from the mobiles, in the near future there’ll be more users visiting the service from mobile devices than from PC. Moreover, the upgrading of new technologies and business models such as O2O (online to offline) and LBS(Location based service) can improve the experiences on mobile internet. He also commented on Facebook’s acquring Instagram and Glancee, and illustrated kaixin001’s focus on the mobile clients.

Finding Blue in the Red Sea: Interest Graph

When started Kaixin001’s team in 2008, Cheng was not really well supported because at that time many thought that the SNS industry had already been a red sea with too many similar offerings and too much fierce competition. However this “happy” man insisted that you could always find your blue sea if you are willing to look things from different perspective. He chose the perspective of white collars’ hidden feelings and needs for networking and his interpretation of “happiness”.

Now it’s time for Kaixin001 to look for the blue sea again, which according to Cheng is interest graph. Social network is all about people, and it’s based on the interacting and networking of these users. However a more subdivided segment on customization is still underdeveloped, especially on the area of tools, e-commerce and sharing.

He said we would see a more vertical market for SNS. The all-embracing networking is not popular any more, companies have realized the importance of focus and took this as their their strengths, for example, take a look at Linkedin, Pinterest or Meilishuo.

Open it All

10 years ago, we were still discussing the possibilities of Internet changing the traditional business models, and now we are talking about how social networks reorganized the whole Internet world at a rapid pace. Hurry up, entrepreneurs.

Cheng described this change as a DNA recombination. Kaixin001.com debuted its open strategy back in 2010, when Cheng thought it was time to share and upgrade the community. He also mentioned the company’s recent cooperation with Tencent, which involves both capital and technology. On the other hand, Kaixin001 is now building a mature open system including open API and adaptive platforms. Talking about the newly emerged private social apps like Path, Cheng thought it was privacy doesn’t necessarily has to be the antonym of social networks. For example, Meike, Kaixin001’s latest mobile effort is a platform trying to encourage people to share as much as they could while leaving them the control over everything concerning privacy.