Not-So-Social Conduct In China's Networking War

WSJ -- Oct 16th -- Oak Pacific Interactive, a leading Chinese Internet company, recently launched a beta version of a new social network, Kaixin.com. There's already an increasingly popular social network called Kaixin001.com Oak Pacific has opened a new front in the war to because China's Facebook. There were 61m SN users in 2006. iResearch expects that figure to hit 110m this year and 180m users by 2010. Within such a big universe, spoof sites and low-tech copycats aren't unheard of. Oak Pacific's Xiaonei.com social network, China's most popular by traffic, has a clone called Xiaonei001.com. Another site, shangxin.com, has a clone called shangxin001. Industry experts say the launch of Oak Pacific's new site might have an impact on Kaixin001, since the similarity in Web page features and names might confuse potential registrants. FULL ARTICLE @ CHINA JOURNAL