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发信人: LuojiaTao (西瓜西瓜), 信区: Internet 标题: TWITTER ATTRACTS CHINESE COPYCATS zz 发信站: 珞珈山水BBS站 (Thu Aug 9 09:32:09 2007), 转信我也转个帖子 TWITTER ATTRACTS CHINESE COPYCATS If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the US “Web 2.0” service www.Twitter.com should feel very flattered by the attention it is receiving from Chinese internet entrepreneurs. In the past few months, at least five Chinese start-ups have launched Twitter-style services that allow users to broadcast their throwaway thoughts to friends and the world through instant messaging, mobile phone text messages and their own websites. The new sites make no attempt to hide where their inspiration comes from. Just like Twitter, all of them feature prominently on their home pages a snapshot list of the most recent musings of their users. Jiwai.de and Komoo.cn even render Twitter's home-page tagline “What are you doing?” word for word in Chinese – and use the same distinctive yellow highlighting effect on the text. Such imitative sincerity is hardly unusual in China's internet sector, which is dominated by locally based companies that have successfully transplanted the services of web pioneers elsewhere. The dominant Chinese internet search company, Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com, closely copied Google, the US market leader. Online games operator Shanda Interactive Entertainment introduced games that had already been developed in South Korea. And entertainment and news websites such as Sina.com and Sohu.com were inspired by overseas portals such as Yahoo. But local entrepreneurs realise that simple replication is hardly enough to guarantee success. China's web culture and regulatory environment remain very different from those of other countries, and even proven foreign business models need to be localised. “Past experience shows that straight copying from overseas always fails,” says Zodiac Li, the founder of Jiwai.de. The site, which uses the German .de internet domain name because of its resemblance to a particle of Chinese speech, has been testing since May. Mr Li says that Jiwai.de has been carefully exploring the needs and tastes of local users ahead of the launch of a new version of its service planned for August. “We have to cross the river by feeling for stones,” he says, quoting an metaphor made famous by Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese political patriarch. Another rival, Fanfou.com, is tweaking the Twitter approach to make it appeal more to local internet users. The website's name is itself a twist on a traditional Chinese greeting – “Have you eaten yet?” Fanfou.com's home page highlights users' ability to find out what their friends are doing and broadcast their own activities. “With this ‘have you eaten?' we have taken a more interesting approach that displays the same kind of interest in friends while having a more Chinese character,” says Wang Xing, Fanfou.com founder. Eventually the Chinese Twitter clones will also seek to offer functions that are not supported by the US original. For the moment, however, they are extremely similar. Users send short messages – a few lines of text – from either their computers or mobile phones. The websites then distribute these messages to friends who want to receive them and also post them online, creating a kind of impromptu blog. To casual browsers, most of the resulting content is, unsurprisingly, banal. Postings on the Chinese web- sites on Monday included such gems for posterity as “Another day's gone by and I haven't done anything”, “I'm back and now I'm writing something” and “It's raining”. Many analysts are convinced that the ability to share such thoughts across different communications platforms is going to prove increasingly popular. But precedent suggests that Twitter, though it is winnning plenty of fans in Europe and Japan, may find it hard to conquer the Chinese market. Regulatory barriers and linguistic and social differences have meant that US internet companies as powerful as Yahoo, Ebay and Microsoft's MSN have faltered in China. Establishing a large user base and generating a “network effect” can be particularly crucial for Web 2.0 social services. Nimble local websites may therefore have the edge if they can quickly grab the attention of China's rapidly growing population of internet users. They can hardly count on easy going, however. By their nature, internet pioneers enjoy a clear field at first. China's new Twitter clones, on the other hand, face a sector that already looks crowded. YouTube's success has inspired a host of Chinese video content-sharing websites, but analysts say some are already struggling to find viewers and are running out of cash. Mr Li of Jiwai.de argues that at least the surfeit of Twitter-type sites will help introduce more local users to this type of service. Plenty of local venture capital companies are already keen to invest in his new company, he says. Such interest comes in spite of factors that might be worrying in other sectors. Jiwai.de and its peers currently charge nothing and yet they have to pay for the servers they use and the distribution of mobile phone messages. Mr Li cheerfully admits that he is not sure how his company will generate revenues or profits. Twitter's founders appear to be in the same position – and are equally unconcerned. “Right now we are just focusing on creating value for our users,” Mr Li says. “If we can do that, then I'm sure we will be able to find a way to realise that value and make money.” 【在 LuojiaTao (西瓜西瓜) 的大作中提到: 】 : 很多做这样的东西了 : 中国有有个比较本地的网站叫做啥网 : zuosha.com : ................... -- 你曾经问我鱼离开水是什么感觉现在我知道了窒息的感觉是这么痛苦！ ※ 修改:·LuojiaTao 于 Aug 9 09:32:20 修改本文·[FROM: 58.35.247.] ※ 来源:·珞珈山水BBS站 bbs.whu.edu.cn·[FROM: 58.35.247.]
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发信人: LuojiaTao (西瓜西瓜), 信区: Internet
标  题: TWITTER ATTRACTS CHINESE COPYCATS zz
发信站: 珞珈山水BBS站 (Thu Aug  9 09:32:09 2007), 转信

我也转个帖子

TWITTER ATTRACTS CHINESE COPYCATS

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the US “Web 2.0” service www.Twitter.com should feel very flattered by the attention it is receiving from Chinese internet entrepreneurs.

In the past few months, at least five Chinese start-ups have launched Twitter-style services that allow users to broadcast their throwaway thoughts to friends and the world through instant messaging, mobile phone text messages and their own websites.

The new sites make no attempt to hide where their inspiration comes from. Just like Twitter, all of them feature prominently on their home pages a snapshot list of the most recent musings of their users.

Jiwai.de and Komoo.cn even render Twitter's home-page tagline “What are you doing?” word for word in Chinese – and use the same distinctive yellow highlighting effect on the text.

Such imitative sincerity is hardly unusual in China's internet sector, which is dominated by locally based companies that have successfully transplanted the services of web pioneers elsewhere.

The dominant Chinese internet search company, Nasdaq-listed Baidu.com, closely copied Google, the US market leader.

Online games operator Shanda Interactive Entertainment introduced games that had already been developed in South Korea.

And entertainment and news websites such as Sina.com and Sohu.com were inspired by overseas portals such as Yahoo.

But local entrepreneurs realise that simple replication is hardly enough to guarantee success. China's web culture and regulatory environment remain very different from those of other countries, and even proven foreign business models need to be localised.

“Past experience shows that straight copying from overseas always fails,” says Zodiac Li, the founder of Jiwai.de. The site, which uses the German .de internet domain name because of its resemblance to a particle of Chinese speech, has been testing since May.

Mr Li says that Jiwai.de has been carefully exploring the needs and tastes of local users ahead of the launch of a new version of its service planned for August.

“We have to cross the river by feeling for stones,” he says, quoting an metaphor made famous by Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese political patriarch.

Another rival, Fanfou.com, is tweaking the Twitter approach to make it appeal more to local internet users. The website's name is itself a twist on a traditional Chinese greeting – “Have you eaten yet?”

Fanfou.com's home page highlights users' ability to find out what their friends are doing and broadcast their own activities.

“With this ‘have you eaten?' we have taken a more interesting approach that displays the same kind of interest in friends while having a more Chinese character,” says Wang Xing, Fanfou.com founder.

Eventually the Chinese Twitter clones will also seek to offer functions that are not supported by the US original. For the moment, however, they are extremely similar.

Users send short messages – a few lines of text – from either their computers or mobile phones. The websites then distribute these messages to friends who want to receive them and also post them online, creating a kind of impromptu blog.

To casual browsers, most of the resulting content is, unsurprisingly, banal. Postings on the Chinese web- sites on Monday included such gems for posterity as “Another day's gone by and I haven't done anything”, “I'm back and now I'm writing something” and “It's raining”.

Many analysts are convinced that the ability to share such thoughts across different communications platforms is going to prove increasingly popular. But precedent suggests that Twitter, though it is winnning plenty of fans in Europe and Japan, may find it hard to conquer the Chinese market.

Regulatory barriers and linguistic and social differences have meant that US internet companies as powerful as Yahoo, Ebay and Microsoft's MSN have faltered in China.

Establishing a large user base and generating a “network effect” can be particularly crucial for Web 2.0 social services. Nimble local websites may therefore have the edge if they can quickly grab the attention of China's rapidly growing population of internet users.

They can hardly count on easy going, however. By their nature, internet pioneers enjoy a clear field at first. China's new Twitter clones, on the other hand, face a sector that already looks crowded.

YouTube's success has inspired a host of Chinese video content-sharing websites, but analysts say some are already struggling to find viewers and are running out of cash.

Mr Li of Jiwai.de argues that at least the surfeit of Twitter-type sites will help introduce more local users to this type of service. Plenty of local venture capital companies are already keen to invest in his new company, he says.

Such interest comes in spite of factors that might be worrying in other sectors. Jiwai.de and its peers currently charge nothing and yet they have to pay for the servers they use and the distribution of mobile phone messages. Mr Li cheerfully admits that he is not sure how his company will generate revenues or profits. Twitter's founders appear to be in the same position – and are equally unconcerned.

“Right now we are just focusing on creating value for our users,” Mr Li says. “If we can do that, then I'm sure we will be able to find a way to realise that value and make money.”

【在 LuojiaTao (西瓜西瓜) 的大作中提到: 】
: 很多做这样的东西了
: 中国有有个比较本地的网站叫做啥网
: zuosha.com
: ...................

--
你曾经问我鱼离开水是什么感觉
现在我知道了
窒息的感觉是这么痛苦！

※ 修改:·LuojiaTao 于 Aug  9 09:32:20 修改本文·[FROM: 58.35.247.*]
※ 来源:·珞珈山水BBS站 bbs.whu.edu.cn·[FROM: 58.35.247.*]

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