branhow.com

When visiting China, us foreigners come to realize that we take what we can access on the internet for granted. For example, sometimes in China, Facebook is blocked. Depending on what is happening within China, the Chinese government decides to eliminate some websites from search. Of course a website cannot be truly blocked, if you really want to access Facebook in China, all you need is a proxy server. I have plenty of friends who live all over China and they still post regular updates on their Facebook pages. I do not use these proxy servers because I do not trust them. These proxy sites make me a little nervous.
This is RenRen, a competing social networking site in China. I believe that China does block websites because of political reasons or fear of information leaks, but I also believe the Chinese government block sites to promote “homegrown” websites. The United States and various other countries have been talking to China about these anti-competitive tricks, but China denies these practices. Anyways while I was over in China, my friends introduced me to renren. This Chinese social networking site is to my knowledge only available in Chinese and is mostly used in mainland China.

Well during my stay in China, I decided to set up a renren account. Even though I rarely use it, it is mainly because I am still learning Chinese and I cannot read some of the sections on the site. Just two days ago, I decided to search the iPhone/ iPod App Store to see if they have an app for iOS. Once I found the official renren app, it took me a while before I remembered my username and password. Once I was using the app, I sensed an air of familiarity about the app. Then it hit me, this app looks awfully similar to the Facebook app! It looks like renren decided to copy the user interface used by Facebook on their iOS app. Even most of the icons are the same and even the layout is pretty much the same. I just thought it was very funny and I wonder if Facebook has realized that they are being mimicked? Well you know the saying, imitation is the highest form of flattery. 😀

RenRen Social Networking Site
Popular Proxy Server Site

~ by branhow on February 28, 2011.

Posted in Archived
Tags: chinese facebook, facebook, facebook app, imitation, proxy, renren, renren app