60 People, 60 Stories

Hearty fun

By Chen Ziyan/Liu Baijia (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 06:26

Cheng Binghao's social networking site has more than 40 million users and 1 billion daily page views. [Zhang Wei]

When Cheng Binghao quit as head of technology at Chinese media group Sina Corp at the end of 2007, he suffered from severely sore eyes and could not see properly.

More importantly, he was not having any fun.

Cheng had been leading a team for two years developing a search engine. But top management of Sina's web portal told him the company would instead be working with US-based search giant Google because "we cannot beat it".

Letting real-time voices do the work

"I did not have fun because I was too focused on an external object," Cheng says.

So when Cheng recovered and started his own social networking website in March last year, he named it Kaixin001.cn: kaixin in Chinese means both "open the heart" and "have fun".

Cheng's site, which he runs from an office in western Beijing with 70 employees, reported more than 40 million users and more than 1 billion daily page views in August.

At the same time, recent figures from market research firm CR-Nielsen have found the country's social networking service (SNS) websites recording more than 100 million unique visitors a week. These online users spent 53.5 million hours on the sites in more than two months.

There are now almost 10,000 SNS websites in China, following the successes of websites like Facebook and Kaixin001.

"Kaixin001 is a milestone in the development of the SNS, with social media becoming a cultural and social phenomenon," says Hans Yu, CEO of CR-Nielsen Greater China.

"Of course, without looking at Facebook, I would not have thought of starting Kaixin001," Cheng says.

Kaixin001 started with some game functions similar to Facebook.

But Cheng believes that only with Chinese characteristics can a website win the hearts of users in China.

While social websites in the United States help strangers meet and expand their networking circles, SNS in China are mainly based on real-life relationships - the web is a tool to strengthen their relations.

Cheng says the explosive growth of his company comes from the desire of white-collar employees and students, especially young people, to have fun amid mounting pressure and loneliness in an increasingly commercial society.

With a large user base and rapid growth, many SNS websites in China including Kaixin001 have also stepped up the search for revenue.

To that effect, Chinese SNS websites target users through embedded ads.

One of Cheng's online users, Wang Rui, recently beat his rivals again in an online rally with a team of six red Chevrolet cars.

Wang Rui, a 27-year-old technician at an electronics company in Shanghai, finally paid about 100,000 yuan to buy himself a real Chevrolet.

Wang confesses that his wins had convinced him that a real red Chevrolet could bring him more luck.

"I hope I can get the same kind of fun in real life," Wang says.

Similarly, 5 million people reportedly bought real ice cream products for a code they could use in a game called Special Treatment on Kaixin001 - so that they could offer virtual treats to their friends, such as sending him or her to a Hawaii beach and getting local massage services.

Still, in spite of all the success, Cheng says revenues of Kaixin001 "are still at a very small scale of several million yuan".

His focus is still on "growing the number of users and their loyalty" to his site.

"Only when our users and customers are happy can we really be happy."