Caught in the Net

A worker at a Swedish insurance company was fired at the beginning of this year because she cried off sick but appeared online at Facebook. The story finally has its Chinese version. Deng Lei (not his real name), a team leader in an Internet Media company based in Xiamen, Fujian province, lost his job because he frequently logged in at Kaixin, the most popular Chinese SNS (Social Networking Service) website.

Deng had been working for the company for five years. At the beginning of this year, the director of the human resources department warned him that he was spotted spending time at www.kaixin001.com during work hours. After several warnings, he was fired.

Kaixin is said to be the Chinese Facebook. When Deng registered in the middle of last year, he discovered a game called "Trading Friends", in which you earned 500 yuan (in online points) for every person you referred to the site. In order to earn as much money as he could, he sent invitations to all his friends. Nearly all of them became members of the site and brought in their friends, too. Through this, and other games, Kaixin lured an army of members without spending a dime on advertising.