Besides QQ, Renren and Wiexin/WeChat and the other social networking sites mentioned in our last post, China continues to introduce new ones and, believe it or not, many old sites have existed for years. Here are some of them:
1.Youku has been around since 2006 and is an almost identical copy of Youtube. The difference is that Youku offers visitors full-length movies and TV shows, and yes, most have Chinese sub-titles, which Youtube cannot because of copyright issues. Although the site is in Chinese, you can search for videos using English words. A recent search brought up Big Daddy, albeit with Arabic sub-titles, which was streamed from Youku’s partner site Tudou.com. The video ran for 99 minutes straight, it wasn’t cut up into sections. Some videos are blocked, depending on your IP address, but most are available for viewing anywhere in the world.
2. Sina.com is described as an ‘infotainment’ site. Consider it like Msn.com and you’ll get the general idea. On Sina, you’ll get lots of news about China but you’ll also be able to read about world news with a twist; it’s all from a Chinese approved point of view. In the West, our news is uncensored but, as you all know, the truth is often adjusted by the companies that own the media site. Fox tells us the news through its point of view as does CNN, MSNBC and so on. Sina isn’t any different, when you look at it like that. Aside from news stories, you’ll be able to catch up on the latest sports and entertainment news. Everything has to be translated, of course, but if you are using Google Chrome, you’ll be fine.
3. Baidu is about as close to Google as you can get but with one big difference. On Baidu, users can search for MP3s, not just videos, but straight MP3s. We checked out some Bon Jovi songs and found a link to www.kuwo.cn. Sure enough, there was an MP3 player complete with karaoke lyrics as the music played. For each search result there is a ‘Play all’ button to stream all the songs on the page. Searching for images on Baidu is quite different from Google. A search brings up full size images instead of a page of thumbnails. Users can easily scroll down the page and see full versions of each photo, then click on the one that matches their search query.
4. Zhan.renren.com is a combination of Tumblr and Pinterest, in our estimation. Linked with Renren.com, Zhan.renren allows users to share photos, comments, profound thoughts and videos on a single page. Like Twitter and Weibo, users ‘follow’ pages and are updated on the page’s status through renren. Some of the pages are incredible, really, full of fashion photography, classic autos and every other topic under the sun. Some pages are simple, others are very ornate, just as they are in Tumblr. If you have a perception of China and its citizens as being somewhat backward, you’d better reconsider. Zhan’s pages reflect an intelligence and an appreciation of art, music and culture that you’d be hard-pressed to equal on Western social networking sites.
5. China’s version of Ebay, at least one of them, is Taobao.com. Unlike Ebay, most of the items on Taobao are new and vendors sell everything from underwear to guitars at incredibly cheap prices. Taobao isn’t a store, just as Ebay isn’t. When you buy something, you’re dealing with a vendor, a private individual or company that uses Taobao as a gateway to their online shop. Millions of Chinese own shops on Taobao, while more millions of Chinese shop there. Shipping is the big problem if you want to get things into the West but if you’re looking for new products, Taobao is the place to go. As with Ebay, the seller’s reputation is how you judge whether your transaction will be satisfactory or not. Almost everything is sold at a fixed price, very few items are on auction. If you think of Taobao as a village market, a huge one, you’ll get a better picture of it. For wholesale purchases, Alibaba is the place to go.
6. Alibaba.com is where China’s manufacturers meet the world. Again, Alibaba is a gateway, not a manufacturing company. They’ve set up thousands of sites for small, medium and large manufacturers to sell their products to the world. Instead of each company having an individual site, and some do, Alibaba brings people to their door, lets them search for items on their main site and then directs the search to a group of manufacturer’s shops. If you’re looking for drill presses, coolers, toys or anything in between, Alibaba is the place to go. It’s not for individuals, however. We’re talking bulk orders here, not piece by piece.
We’ve listed some of the larger and more interesting sites here but why not go exploring yourself? China’s Internet presence is vast, interesting and completely different from anything you’re experienced before. Hopefully, we’ve captured your interest. If you come across something interesting, share it here and we’ll check it out.
Thanks for reading!