City SNS

The year 2007 witnesses the fast expansion of Social Networking Sites (SNS) anywhere in the world and, to any direction.

Trend description:

SNS is booming, no matter on the internet or on the little screens of cell phones, in a more virtual form or a more real one. While the SNS big brothers such as Myspace, Facebook, Cyworld, struggle to expand their influence across the national and cultural boundaries, small fishes find it a good strategy to head for a reversed direction- localizing and customizing the networks.

Case study:

When Bob Li quitted his job in Red-Herring Beijing office, he was sure he could make something out of his Very86 city SNS. “86″ is the region code of China, under which a bunch of SNS (currently numbered 14) are maintained and promoted across the cities in China. These “Very+initials of the city’s name” websites allow users to DIY their own social networks according to their special interests in local communities. For instance, they can organize an activity for a memorial day or a trip over weekend; they can exchange experience in house decoration; or they might want to sell their collections that are no longer needed.

The local Tianjin website (verytj.com) is the oldest and most-populous (it boasts more than 80,000 registered users) among the current 14 branches. A good portion of the users are aged from 15 to 25.

The customized feature, however, is not an invention of Bob Li. As early as 2005, Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini (USA) founded Ning.com as a platform for creating personal social networking and social websites.

Trend impact:

The era of web 2.0 is dominated by user generated content. Users are the sole decisive factor on what to know, how to entertain themselves and who to make friends with. City SNS gives a free service for them to move their living rooms to the web. Especially when the acquaintances on the net live close in geographic term, the relationship can be further developed and be more real.

Image sources:

www. very86.com
www.verytj.com
www.ning.com

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