Wang Xing, Founder Of 'Chinese Groupon,' Talks Cloning Popular Sites

Forbes:

Wang Xing was 26 years old and already the founder of a failed Chinese takeoff of oncehot Friendster when he cloned Facebook. It was December 2005 in Beijing, and Wang and two friends had made an excellent copy. Xiaonei would quickly become the most trafficked Chinese version of Facebook, but less than a year in, forced to borrow money from his parents to keep it going, Wang sold his first success for several million dollars.

He and other friends next copied Twitter. Fanfou would become China's highest-profile Twitter clone, but it was taken off line by the government after the Xinjiang riots of July 2009 and would not return for more than a year. Meanwhile Xiaonei flourished under its new owners and its new name, Renren; it will soon be valued at more than $4 billion in a highly anticipated U.S. IPO.

Read the whole story: Forbes

Comments

[Dhiya]

03:02 AM on 05/02/2011

The very powerful and fastest growing eCommerce business trend in China and each Country. Groupon clone sites and follow the money to start trading the same strategy. Nowadays even groupon clone Web and script available on the market.
http://grouponclone.contussupport.com

[jc budmo]

11:35 PM on 05/01/2011

I live in China, everything here, and I mean EVERYTHING is copied from the West or Japan. Bare this in mind the next time you hear people talking about mighty China.

[GeorgieMark]

05:01 PM on 04/30/2011

Why is it groupon's clone?

Sure, it operates more or less in the same way like groupon but it isn't eating away groupon's profit, it's not active in the same countries as groupon.

If we were to call something "clones" that would be Google's reported attempt in creating a service much like groupon (after a botched attempt at acquiring them), facebook's launch of a social buying programme infringing on groupon's business. Those are Groupon's clones.

The chinese make so many bad copies of successful products and I am the first to acknowledge it (see o-phone 3GS TV, popstation and Vii) but this is not such a case.

Would anybody call Baidu.com a Google Clone?

[iblogleft]

03:55 PM on 04/30/2011

When the authorities cannot stop I.P. theft, what is the option?

[one tequila two tequila]

02:34 PM on 04/30/2011

pirate.you say? come to Thailand where they copy the pirate.
It is so bad even the Thais are afraid to purchase any brand name for fear it is a copy.

[jalaroc]

01:00 PM on 04/30/2011

He is not an entrepeneur, merely a pirate.