The internet Not losing Facebook in China

互联网：“中国式”抄袭

Social-networking and video-sharing sites are booming

视频及社交网站的蓬勃发展

XIAONEI.COM does not just look like Facebook, the booming social-networking website. As well as borrowing its design, it has also lifted its strategy and transplanted it to China. It is not alone. All the big “Web 2.0” sites—those that let people share information, collaborate and link up with friends—have many Chinese knockoffs. YouTube, the video-sharing site that is now part of Google, has over 200 copycats in China, about 10% of them backed by venture capital, says Isaac Mao, an internet investor and a Chinese blogging pioneer.

校园网（XIAONEI.COM）是酷似Facebook的一家社交网站，它不仅仅借鉴了Facebook的设计，同时将其战略思想也一并移植到了中国。这显然不是一个个案。在中国，几乎所有有关“Web 2.0”的网站都有它的“仿制品”。“Web 2.0”是提供一个让人们分享信息，和朋友之间保持联系的平台。毛向辉认为，Google旗下的视频网站YouTube在中国至少有200多个“复制品”，其中的10%是有风险投资的参与。毛是一位互联网的投资者，同时也是一名中国著名的博客写手。

And no wonder, since most Web 2.0 sites do not have official Chinese versions. So enterprising start-ups simply copy the ideas and graphics, and localise them to suit Chinese tastes. The Chinese market is now so saturated that it is much harder to raise money than it was a year ago, says Gary Wang, the boss of Tudou—a site known as the “Chinese YouTube”. This is a good thing, he says, because it means investors are being much more discriminating.

由于大多数Web 2.0原创网站没有推出自己的中文版网站，于是出现了一些中国互联网企业，他们通过简单地抄袭国外原创网站的思想和图片，再根据中国网民的口味，稍作修改后，推出自己的汉化版本。土豆网（Tudou）就是YouTube的中文翻版，创办人王微认为，如今的中国市场，与一年前相比，趋于饱和，融资变得越来越难，不过他同时指出，这未必是件坏事情，投资者有更多的选择来去伪存真。

The surge of interest has created some problems, however. There is not enough bandwidth or data-centre capacity to keep up with demand, says Kaiser Kuo, director for digital strategy at Ogilvy China, an advertising agency. This makes some websites painfully slow to use. Another problem is that traffic does not flow smoothly between the networks of China Telecom and China Netcom, the two fixed-line telecoms operators. Many firms deal with this by setting up “mirrors” of their sites.

互联网的飞速发展同时带来一些问题。奥美数字观察网站的Kaiser Kuo先生认为，由于没有足够的带宽和存储空间，用户在访问网站会觉得速度较慢，而中国两大固话运营商，中国网通和中国电信的互联性存在问题，使得问题更加尤为突出。很多网站则以架设镜像网站的方式来应对。

Cultural compatibility is much less of a problem, given the extent to which Chinese society is built on personal connections, or guanxi. Online social-networking is a logical extension of such relationships, says Allison Luong of Pearl Research, an internet consultancy.

至于文化方面，倒没有什么大的问题，中国的社会本身就是建立在人与人之间相互联系，就是所谓的“关系”之上。一家网络咨询公司Pearl Research的Allison Luong先生认为，在线社交网站的出现扩大了人们的关系圈子。

Some Chinese start-ups, such as Anothr.com and douban.net, are now seeking customers outside China with English-language websites. Others hope to do deals with foreign Web 2.0 firms. One of Mr Mao's investments is in Wealink, a Chinese site inspired by LinkedIn that has around 1.2m users. It has attracted the attention of the original LinkedIn, and the two firms have discussed a tie-up. “Who knows?” says a smiling Mr Mao. “Maybe in the future we'll see Wealink buy LinkedIn.”

一些中国的刚建立的网站，例如哪吒网（Anothr.com）和豆瓣网（douban.net），已经在国外寻求英语国家的客户。另一些网站则希望和外国的同行进行合作。毛向辉投资了一家名叫若邻（Wealink）的网站，现有120多万的注册用户，这引起了LinkedIn的注意。Wealink是LinkedIn中文翻版。如今这两家正在讨论合作的可能性。“谁知道会发生什么？”毛向辉笑着说，“也许将来，Wealink还会收购LinkIn呢。” （The Economist print edition）