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techrice分析:人人网领跑中国社交网站发展

发布时间:2011-01-06 17:43:12 Tags:,,,

在中国的“超级防火墙”之外,Facebook为全球各社交网站制订了基本的发展规则。而在中国境内,人人网凭借1亿6千万的注册用户遥遥领先于其他社交网站,人人网才是中国社交网站领域的规则制定者。值得一提的是,人人网的最大竞争对手腾讯QQ空间虽然拥有更庞大的用户数量,但它实行的是匿名制,所以并不能算是严格意义上的社交网站。

因此一直以来都是人人网在领跑中国社交平台,深刻影响这一领域的互动化、货币化规则的制定。人人网善于复制Facebook的运营模式,同时会根据中国互联网用户的喜好进行本土化调整,这种方式常令不少海外社交媒介观察者难以捉摸。

RenRen-Xiaonei

RenRen-Xiaonei

人人网的发展是否已经成熟?

人人网的前身是校内网。该网站极其类似Facebook,甚至在网站页面底部还标明着“Mark Zuckerberg产品”字样。与Facebook一样,校内网一开始的定位是校园社交网站。2005年,千橡互动公司收购了该网站,并在2009年将其重命名为人人网。为了实现人人网的华丽转身,千橡互动采用了大量的传统媒介广告宣传活动。通过这一系列的广告宣传,人人网重新定义了用户关系,并吸引了大量的新用户。正是如此,人人网由原来的校园社交网站一跃成为面向各个年龄层的广义社交网站。

以下是游戏邦了解的一些人人网相关数据:

1.从2009年10月至2010年10月,人人网新增用户6千万。在中国目前的4亿2千万的互联网用户中,就有1亿6千万人是人人网用户,该网站每日活跃用户约为2800万。

2.人人网活跃用户平均每人每天浏览23.5个页面,每月登陆总时长达6.2天。

3.人人网拥有9800万上班族用户(主要遍布于二、三级城市)和4千万学生用户。

人人网的社交广告价值衡量标准

2010年11月,人人网举办了一系列名为“人人效应(The RenRen Effect)”的宣活动,在上海和北京等地介绍它在中国的社交广告价值模式。人人网希望通过这次活动,定义社交广告的价值,宣传各公司加盟人人网的必要性。这种模式强调了用户之间不同互动行为的价值,尤其是用户与朋友、朋友与自己的朋友这种二级信息分享行为的重要性。

在此之前,社交网站Facebook便提出了与这种概念类似的“衍生价值”。在《Facebook效应》一书中,David Kirkpatrick写道:

一旦广告商与用户建立联系,广告商便能获得了大量所谓的“衍生价值”。企业高管们都说,如果一个品牌与一名用户建立了关系,就有可能获得200次免费的‘广告展示印象’(Facebook用户会注意到关于这个品牌的信息)如此一来,传统的横幅广告将丧失其吸引力,嵌入式广告更能体现品牌和用户之间的对话,这是传统横幅广告所无法获取的效果。

RenRen trumpets the 'derivative value' of SNS ad

RenRen trumpets the 'derivative value' of SNS ad

通过这次的“人人效应”活动,人人网希望向广大中国品牌和广告商介绍“衍生价值”这一理念。人人网着重强调了通过挚交好友转发而获得的叠加广告效果。对此,千橡互动公司首席营销总监Alvin Chiang表示:

在“人人效应”的影响下,广告商所获的投资回报将不仅仅是点击率。通过社交网站的内在机制,广告商可以实现用户与品牌的互动,同时令用户主动与好友分享品牌相关信息,将用户塑造成品牌的拥趸。此外,品牌还能通过网友页面吸引并积累用户的关注度。

人人的这些承诺是否可以兑现呢?现在的社交广告时代才刚刚揭幕,一切定论为时尚早。然而用户的关注热情是有限的,他们迟早会消化不了这么多的广告。现在的人人网看起来更像是一个主题广告公园,这种以广告为中心的发展策略恐怕并不利于这个网站的长远发展。

人人网的优势在哪?

Facebook经常尝试新设计,不断推出新功能,检测用户反馈信息,它在技术层面上远比人人网要进步得多。

人人网基本上处于对Facebook亦步亦趋的状态,所以在技术开发一环中还谈不上有什么创新。当Facebook推出Places、Like和Pages功能时,人人网也如法炮制,甚至连名称都直接照搬过来。他们非常擅长克隆Facebook的主要功能,但在具体细节上的造诣远逊于Facebook,比如说新闻供应系统、定期更新的用户界面(人人网还停留于Facebook过去的发展状态中)。那么人人网究竟使了什么法子,在一年时间中虏获了6000万的用户?

1.原校内网余热尚存

现在的许多人人网用户,都是从原校内网过继而来的群体,他们在过去三四年的学生时代中通过人人网建立了紧密的联系。这些用户在人人网中储存了大量的内容,所以毕业以后也难以舍弃这一阵地,参加工作后又将人人网作为主要的社交平台。

2.强大的校园影响力

尽管人人网已经不再是一个校园网站,但它对学生群体,甚至是高中生用户中尤其具有影响力,人人网仍然是这些学生们首选的社交网站,这也是目前最适合他们的中国社交平台。

3.在本土缺乏竞争对手

Kaixin001和51这两个社交网站在2010年先后陷入没落,它们在技术开发上的不思进取,导致大批用户移情别恋,投入了人人网的怀抱。

人人网的五个发展方向

The 5 Major Trends of SNS development as defined by RenRen

The 5 Major Trends of SNS development as defined by RenRen

据游戏邦了解,人人网的SNS发展战略有五个方向:移动平台、娱乐产品、基于社交活动的地理定位服务、电子商务、跨平台资源整合。人人网的触角遍及最热门的应用种类,在2010年10月介绍了5款将于2011年推出的新产品:

*一款社交游戏:《RenRen Party》

*一款音乐应用

*一款地理定位应用

*“Like”功能(Facebook功能的翻版)

*一个“团购”网站

上述产品几乎囊括了社交网站最被看好的发展方向,所以人人网现在正急于吸引大量第三方公司进行项目合作。

前不久街旁网(Jiepang,FourSquare的拷贝版本)暂时停止对人人网的同步化支持,导致后者用户无法将他们在街旁网上的签到信息传达给人人网好友。虽然这个同步化功能最后总算恢复了,但在事发的那一周中,有不少人猜测这是因为人人网打算推出自己的iPhone版地理定位应用,所以才关闭了那项功能。

人人网对境外竞争对手的启发

在中国做互联网的生意,总是难免遇到这种情况:实力强大的公司总能占领更多资源,通过垄断将有点创意的小型开发商挤出市场。在这一点上,人人网远不如以技术取胜的Facebook,反倒更像一家媒体咨询公司。但不管怎么说,它至少走过了五年历程,而且经济实力不容小觑。不过它在用户体验上已经在走下坡路了,不少用户根本不把它当回事。假如Facebook能够获准再次进军中国,真该好好研究下人人网究竟是如何将他们的模式进行本土化处理,然后再投放到市场上的。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

RenRen Setting the Standard for China’s Social Networks

Facebook has set the standard for social networking outside of the great firewall, but a different set of rules apply inside of it. In China, RenRen is way ahead of its competitors, with 160 million registered users. It’s biggest competitor, Tencent’s Qzone, claims more registered users, but relies more upon usernames than true names and is slow to change.

RenRen is racing ahead and setting the standards for user interaction and monetization on Chinese social networks. Their model draws on both a healthy dose of Facebook copying and the unique characteristics of Chinese internet users, which can make it hard to grasp for social media observers outside of China.

How Mature is RenRen?

One of RenRen’s TV ads told a story of a friendship restored after years of misunderstanding. And it was all possible ‘because of RenRen.’

RenRen was originally XiaoNei (校内), which was nearly an exact replica of Facebook–it even had “A Mark Zuckerberg Production” at the bottom of the page. XiaoNei was an on-campus social networking site, just like Facebook. In 2005, Oak Pacific Interactive acquired Xiaonei and in 2009 the site’s name was changed to RenRen. This change was accompanied by a series of traditional media ads, including huge print and TV ad buys. That’s an unusual promotion method for an internet company, but those ads redefined user relationships and attracted new user demographics, allowing RenRen to jump from campus to a broader network for all ages.

Let’s look at the numbers:

•Between October 2009 and October 2010 RenRen’s user base increased by 60 million, with a total of 160 million registered users out of a total 420 million internet users in China. It has an estimated 28 million daily active users (self-reported).

•Active users average 23.5 pages per user per day and log-in 6.2 days per month.

•RenRen currently has 98 million working class users (mainly spread out in second and lower tier cities) and 40 million student users.

RenRen Social Ads Value Model

In November, RenRen held a series of promotional events, called the The RenRen Effect, in Shanghai and Beijing to introduce its Social Ads Value Model in China. RenRen is attempting to define the value of social ads, and why it’s necessary for companies to get involved (in RenRen, of course). The model attaches value to different kinds of interactions between users, especially the second-order benefits of friends sharing to friends.

Facebook refers to this as “Derivative Value.” In The Facebook Effect (p. 261), David Kirkpatrick writes,

Once an advertiser establishes some sort of connection with a user it gets a tremendous amount of what Facebook calls ‘derivative value.’ Executives say that once a brand makes a connection with a consumer that leads to an average of about 200 free additional ‘impressions’–occasions when people on Facebook see information about that brand. ‘We will never again sell banner ads,’ says [Facebook advertiser], ‘Engagement ads leverage the power of the Internet to enable the marketer to have a dialogue with the audience. That’s very different from traditional banner ads on the Web. Those do what advertisers have done on TV and in print for fifty years–intentionally disrupt the experience you are having.’

With its “RenRen Effect,” RenRen is trying to introduce this concept of ‘derivative value’ to Chinese brands and advertisers. RenRen’s statement also highlights the multiplier effects gained via referrals from trusted friends. Alvin Chiang, Chief Marketing Officer of Oak Pacific Interactive, states:

With The RenRen Effect, advertisers don’t only get return on their initial investment in ‘Paid Media by impressions and clicks’ they get much more, on Social networks, advertiser also gets free ‘Earned Media’ through news feeds, a built-in mechanism which allows users to not only interact with a brand, but to share the brand’s own messages with their friends automatically and therefore, become brand advocates. In addition, the brand may eventually accumulate and gain ‘Owned Media’ through Fan Pages, another powerful marketing tool available on Renren.

Is RenRen’s pitch to be believed? We can’t really say, since it’s just the beginning of the social ads era. But one thing is certain, there’s a limit in terms of user experience–sooner or later users will become saturated and can’t take anymore ads. But RenRen is confident that they are still long way from that point. Right now RenRen is more like a theme park with fancy rides (ads) as attraction, though the ad-centric strategy may not be fitting for long term development of the site.

What is RenRen’s Advantage?

Facebook always experiments with its design, bringing out new functions and then testing user feedback. It’s definitely more technologically advanced than RenRen.

Since creation, RenRen has not had many turning points in its technical development. Most steps follow Facebook closely, so we can’t see if there’s a sense of creativity in RenRen. When Facebook launched Places, Like, and Pages, so did RenRen (with exactly same names). They are very efficient at copying Facebook on the major functions, but there are the lesser details of Facebook that’s still desirable in RenRen, such as the more intelligent newsfeed system and an updated user interface (RenRen’s today is Facebook’s yesterday). So what is RenRen’s strategy that attracted 60 million users in one year?

1. Existing Users

Many RenRen users came from the time of XiaoNei, campus buddies that have established strong ties in RenRen over the last two to four years. These users have stored a huge amount of content in RenRen, so there’s a high barrier for them to switch, even when they leave school. New work connections have to join RenRen to be part of their social network.

2. Campus Network Environment

Even though none of the officials in OPI will admit that RenRen is still a campus network, when it comes to student users, especially the younger high school students, RenRen is still their primary choice of SNS, because based on the maturity level of SNS sites in China this is what they are most comfortable with.

3. Decline of Competitors

In 2010, we have seen huge declines in SNS sites such as Kaixin001 and 51. Their lack of development has cost them large numbers of users. As users abandon their sinking ships, RenRen beckons.

RenRen’s Game Plan & Reliability

The RenRen management views the future of SNS in five steps: Mobile, Entertainments, Social Structure Horizontal Shift, eCommerce, and Cross Platform Integration.

RenRen’s game plan is to test the water with all of the hottest apps. In October, RenRen introduced 5 new products for 2011:

•A social game, RenRen Party

•A music app

•An LBS app

•A “Like” function (exactly the same as Facebook)

•A “Groupon” site

That basically covers all of the hottest social media trends right now. So RenRen is making a number of the third parties in its ecosystem rather anxious.
For instance, there was recently a temporary termination of Jiepang‘s (a copy of FourSquare) synchronization with RenRen, which means users could no longer broadcast their check-ins in JiePang to their RenRen friends. Synchronization has since been restored, but that week raised speculation that it was attributable to RenRen launching an updated version of their own LBS iPhone app.

Lesson Learned for Those Outside the Great Firewall

In China, the business on the internet is just like that offline: with the discovery of a new cash cow, the more powerful companies tends to dominate the field, monopolize the service, and knock out smaller developers who sometimes have genius ideas. RenRen in this case is far from the development-centric style of Facebook. By contrast, RenRen looks much more like a media consulting company. But they have survived for five years, they are still going strong financially, and even though there are signs of decline in user experience, users now take it for granted. If Facebook is ever allowed to re-enter China, perhaps it should look closer at how RenRen copied their model and is now gradually localizing it.(source:techrice)


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