Why Renren is better than Facebook
April 5th, 2010 by CC | Posted in Featured, Opinion | 49 Comments »
In this age of mechanical reproduction, China is often very much guilty of making less-than-impressive versions of things that the West did first. However, I have found some exceptions and one of them is Renren (人人网, translation: Everyone’s Network), China’s version of Facebook (and no it’s not blocked).
Last year I started using Renren.com because I was about to study for a year at Peking University and wanted to understand college students in China before I actually got there. And while I give Facebook a lot of credit for being “first,” I decided I really like Renren.com for the following four reasons:
1. It’s encouragement to produce more, not just consume
Facebook is pretty good for sharing links and photos, but not really to write out your thoughts, except through short status updates. Instead of “Notes,” Renren calls their writing application rizhi (日志), which is equivalent to something like “log” or “journal.” I’m sure there are some cultural differences in how people like to express themselves, but remember the days of Livejournal when people actually wrote longer entries to express themselves in a personal way? That was back in high school for me, and I feel like with Facebook I’ve actually regressed by becoming more incompetent and unwilling to express myself. In Renren’s entries, I’ve read insightful opinions on Obama, beautiful descriptions of a rainfall, and even analysis on the sexual differences between men and women. Some of this happens on Facebook, but it’s less popular, and mostly in the form of lists of favorite movies, music, etc. More of this on Facebook would be nice.
2. The recent effort to help the drought victims in Southern China
Facebook recently had the Community Giving campaign, but I barely noticed that it happened. On Renren.com, they put a small rainy cloud icon next to anyone who has made an effort to help the drought victims. For every person who visits the charity page, Renren donates a cent to the effort. Additionally, you can buy digital “gifts” to donate to the Red Cross. To get the rain cloud, you could be donating money or just leaving a message to show your support and sympathy. There is also an informational video explaining the crisis and the impact it is having on local communities. Even though it does not look significant, the rain cloud is effective and has the effect of: 1) peer pressure: other people see the cute icon, wonder what it’s for, and want one next to their name too; 2) publicity: it’s obvious yet subtle about the effort.
3. The Forum
With the forum, you can see the hottest links being shared, the most commented on journal entries, a daily poll, and just what people are talking about in general. A good way to envision this is to think of a page where Facebook groups, fan pages, organizations are sort of “summarized” in a way so you have an overall idea of general trends and popular things, sort of like knowing what the trending topics are on Twitter. This also provides a better space for discussion and expression rather than the pretty linear “Wall” of Facebook. I guess Facebook things do have discussion pages, but these are under used and not linked into a “big picture” so you have to go to individual pages to see what people are talking about.
4. The ability to see who visits you
At first I did not like this function, it made me feel really exposed and I thought that I liked the privacy of Facebook. However, with a News Feed and such, I’ve found that I don’t really visit individual’s pages unless I am engaging in stalker-like behavior or pro-active enough to write or post something on their page. This function on Renren helped me only visit people I felt I had a genuine connection with, decreased the amount of mindless browsing I did, and acted as a way of saying “hi” without too much effort. I guess there’s a moderating effect with this function that leads to more restrained Renren usage, but with an increase in quality of the time I do spend on it.
Of course Renren is not perfect and these might just be my personal preferences, but I hope that they are things that Facebook and Facebook users consider.
Renren does have a Wikipedia page if you want to read more.
Tags: Facebook, Internet, RenRen, Social Network, Technology
I ALSO SIGNED UP REN REN ayear ago, in my college almost every student has ren ren and its truely easy way to communicate the local students. i visit everyday and learned alot. Facebook is also great site nothing that i can compare with any other social networking sites, i can connect to almost everyone in my life circle from High school friends to work collegues.
I don’t see anything about the original source of this posting. Is this part of an advertising campaign? Because I feel like lashing out against the inanity of comparing something that is available with something that can be arbitrarily denied by government censors, but I don’t want to waste my efforts if this is just a publicity stunt. I would however like to suggest a simpler and more direct promotional wording: Renrenwang, because it is approved and monitored by censors, which must suck for facebook users, right?
Since there is no link suggesting that this post is from another website, it’s reasonable to assume that the author of the post is the person in the byline – me.
This is not an advertisement. It is my own honest assessment of features of Renren that I like more than their Facebook counterparts. I agree, I think that censorship is a problem but it doesn’t necessarily mean any of the above points are invalid. Also, Facebook does intervene and censor too.
hi ,also give qqzone a try
it’s in some way different and more to my taste
I think you are using the term censor a bit loosely. Facebook does enforce its user regulations and has the right to delete postings that are deemed objectionable. This is the right and prerogative of any webmaster. Comparing that to a government’s power to delete arbitrarily any postings it deems counterrevolutionary, unharmonizing, or to block a whole website is disingenuous.
I think it’s fine to talk up the merits of Renrenwang, but I find it pointless to draw a comparison in China with Facebook which is simply no longer available. How can you rightly compare two websites when one is no longer accessible for such a comparison?
Censorship aside, I still think it’s valuable to compare two social platforms in terms of functionality. There is a reason that ethnic food is pretty widely available in the US now, even at grocery stores. If something is better but inaccessible, you find ways to access it. Facebook is not officially available in China but I know of a number of Chinese people who still use it. Also, with the majority of students using Renren and sites like Kaixin001, some might not even feel the need to use Facebook. It’s not always a matter of censorship, it also depends on who you can access in a certain community, if the platform is tailored to your needs, etc.
renren is okay for what it is- it’s a good way to keep in touch with my friends, students, and people comment on your status update within 10 seconds!
recently, i like http://www.xiami.com very much.
I like it,too!There are lots pieces of good songs.
The nice thing about Facebook is that there is an international community that uses it.
After having been on Renren for about a year I’m surprised that a foreigner would make this argument. To me, renren wang is nothing more than a blatant rip-off of Facebook that only exists because Facebook is blocked. If Facebook weren’t blocked, it would have no reason to exist. Aside from the international community of hundreds of millions on Facebook (the greatest asset of any social network), the site is engineered to near perfection through all of its revisions and iterations. Especially compared to its forebears Friendster and Myspace. Renren wang strikes me as a Chinese-language only carbon copy of Facebook, which the real global network for everyone (except Chinese).
Charlie – I must say that I had the exact same impression as you when I first started using Renren. However, due to the reality that Facebook IS blocked, I started noticing things about Renren that I would not have if I didn’t really understand the community or how Chinese people actually use it and only with more use did I notice the reasons I stated above. I must say that I do not like the secluded nature of Renren, but there are also many characteristics about the USE of Facebook I do not like – which is why I’ve sort of turned to using Twitter in combination with Facebook (for better, quirkier and more informed links to information that I never see on Facebook, sort of the lifecast versus mindcast distinction).
I think Facebook is well designed and I appreciate the international community, but I still stand by my above reasons for why I like Renren better in some respects. I don’t see my reasons as a holistic evaluation, but as encouragement for Facebook to notice what other social platforms originally made in its image are doing, and perhaps doing better.
And of course, these reasons are pretty subjective, as I think most any better/worse comparisons are.
All best/worst comparisons have a subject element, but if it’s too subjective then the comparison isn’t of value to anyone else. In that case, the headline should be: “Why I Don’t Like Facebook” although I’m sure we agree that that makes a much less alluring headline.
I think the argument that Facebook is better than Renren is strong enough that it need not even be penned, though. Use both for five minutes and the differences are glaringly obvious. Renren is like a homogenous Facebook at the very beginning of its development.
Just my opinion as a Renren and Facebook user.
I would agree with you that Facebook is more developed, more streamlined and a little less clunky, but I really like the “spirit” of Renren (which most of my above reasons are about anyways).
And facebook is merely an extension of what had already been going on within the internet community. it’s more of a collection of ideas instead of a innovative one altogether. in other words, don’t make it more that what it really is: a project that went surprisingly lucky, instead of a hard thought idea.
renren/xiaonei simply went with that, sure it copied just about everything, but that’s the ideal behind the web, share and improve. Wikipedia is a great example, there are thousands of wikis out there helping people, i don’t see Wikipedia complaining.
Ok, I get it, copyrights and community do go well together, but which one would you choose.
I think you are vastly underestimating Facebook’s creative vision and production prowess. They’ve made many brilliant decisions which have resulted in them fostering hundreds of millions of users distributed among the entire planet. They destroyed serious competitors with near-endless funding and came from humble roots. None of this happened by chance or luck. Go to San Francisco, London, or Hong Kong and you’ll find nearly everyone under 35 is on Facebook.
What they’ve created is really incredible. To compare that to Renren wang (which always and forever will be known as a pale imitator) is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. But hey, it’s a controversial position to take that’s sure to garner a lot of comments.
Ah HA! competitors, that means they were not the only one with the idea. neither renren nor facebook was a product of original thoughts. so ha!
Let’s not lie to ourselves:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/25/in-the-world-of-facebook/
Facebook is successful because of its class basis; no one wants to be friends with 22-year-old dropout internet addicts.
I don’t really know if RenRen is a better service than Facebook, since I’m not a connoisseur of social networking services, but regarding creative vision and production prowess; they’ve screwed up many times regarding feature management and it’s been their established userbase that’s carried them this far.
“Renren is like a homogenous Facebook at the very beginning of its development.”
yeah, that was when facebook was actually good. now it’s all gone to shit
Totally unrelated – I just looked at your website and I really like Eurostile too
But for some reason my new Mac does not have it anymore! I’ve been using Optima for my drafts (until the dreaded switch to Times New Roman) but I still miss Eurostile. A lot.
haha, that site is actually making fun of my industrial design friends who use eurostile on EVERYTHING. i don’t hate the font but i don’t use it that much.
hey so this means my sites are accessible in china? good
on renren (if you are a foreigner) is easy to hook up pretty chinese girls. you can’t do that on facebook…good for lazy asses like me
4 stupid reasons.
Why Renren is better than Facebook…
In this age of mechanical reproduction, China is often very much guilty of making less-than-impressive versions of things that the West did first. However, I have found some exceptions and one of them is Renren (人人网, translation: Everyone’s Network), C…
I use Renren, Chinaren and Facebook. What matters to me is the number of friends in the database.
Chinaren has my high school and primary school’s class pages so I used Chinaren most for alumni networks.
Since Renren has functionality and some games (for example 开心农场) people like, a lot friends signed up accounts there so I have an account in Renren too.
Facebook is good but it used to require a US .edu email to register (can’t remember when it changed the policy, must be long time ago) and it’s blocked in China so it’s not popular among Chinese friends. I think even facebook was not blocked in China it wouldn’t be as popular as Renren and Chinaren since Chinese users have different needs from users in the US have and there’s no doubt a Chinese company knows Chinese users better.
Haven’t used Tencent’s xiaoyou so I have no comment on that. QQ is prevailing in China and almost everyone has an account. A lot customer services in China are done by live chat in QQ, which is different from US where toll free numbers are used.
“it’s blocked in China so it’s not popular among Chinese friends.”
Oh my gosh! Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
” I think even facebook was not blocked in China it wouldn’t be as popular as Renren and Chinaren since Chinese users have different needs from users in the US have and there’s no doubt a Chinese company knows Chinese users better. ”
Chinese exceptionalism? Only Chinese know China? Where are the hugely successful Chinese Car makers? They must know Chinese needs better! How about the electronics industry? They must know the Chinese market? The fact is the gov’t has a tight grip on info in China. That is all this is about.
WTF! If you don’t read my comment or don’t understand what I said, don’t reply with your nonsense.
It is you who are spewing the nonsense, sonny.
echo “your crap” > /dev/null
I agree with Wang Er. My former chinese students would use QQ as their personal IM client rather than MSN or Yahoo. Renren is a social community software for the Chinese market so naturally they would go with what everyone is using.
Lastly, its in Chinese. Data is processed differently. A chinese version of an English site is still structured and processed in English.
I’m all for locally developed software but since I only understand English I would most likely use English based applications.
The last point is interesting. Maybe, indeed, even if Facebook wasn’t blocked – still people would prefer other local media. Just like Google did not succeed to conquer more than 15% of Chinese market before leaving.
It however does not say anything about objective quality of product. Facebook proved its power in competition with other once more popular social medias.
[...] information? I was pretty surprised when reading this news, especially because I just did a post comparing Renren (Chinese Facebook) and [...]
I think the Grand Canyon is much better and more beautiful in the USA. There is no Grand Canyon in China so that makes ours better. Sure they have a few holes but our Grand Canyon is better because we have one.
Ren ren can eat a 10″ diameter cock.
Las Vegas kicks Macao’s ass all day because you get half naked girls with your gambling problem. I prefer London over Hong Kong because I never been to london. Uh what else? I like Japanese Guitars over American made well for obvious reasons they sound better. Like Brazilian ass over black ass because they are more evenly brown. American chinese food taste allot better than Northern style Chinese food because it not even chinese. Korean television is way better than cctv because its just way more better.
I clicked the link to have a look and I was stunned: renren is the first chinese website I’ve seen that isn’t 10 screen pages long with hundreds of animated flash ads and blinking text.
Wow, do you people not remember the early days of Xiaonei? (Renren’s original name). It was Facebook. There was no question of similarities, it was a carbon copy, where I wouldn’t doubt they directly copied the html code in many cases, and just replaced the word “Facebook” with Xiaonei. I used it sometimes because I had Chinese friends on it who weren’t on Facebook.
Point 2 regarding gift giving and donations has been a component of Facebook for as long as I can remember. Maybe you just didn’t notice because you can’t access facebook. I guess you don’t get a cloud next to your name on Facebook though. Other than the difference in the name, I don’t see how Notes are different from 日志. Notes were already in Facebook by the time Xiaonei copied it, but maybe they weren’t there at the very beginning, which is why they’re used less. I do indeed like that they get more use on Renren.
Seeing who’s stalking me is fun too, and both reduces stalking tendencies and encourages me to leave a comment when I visit someone’s page, so that my visit seems less creepy.
Still, if I were to directly copy someone else’s product and make a few tweaks, I hardly think it should be commended as “better”.
Good analysis and opinion, CC. For me the larger issue–more important than which website currently has the best gimmicks or flow, or whether Chinese would prefer a homegrown site to a foreign-designed one–is the simple fact that the Chinese are missing out on a website that has been a unifying force for people from all over the globe.
Example: I used to love AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) back in college, but noted the problem that Chinese were on QQ, most non-Americans were using MSN, and most Americans were using AIM. I’m sure there were probably other national or language based products that I wasn’t aware of. Self-segregated audiences, in other words, just depending on which product built enough momentum in each location.
Before being blocked, Facebook was popular with certain segments of the Chinese population that wanted to reach out to the world, wanted an easy way to practice their English usage, and/or wanted to make the Chinese perspective more visible in greater cyberspace. That will be sorely missed (well, perhaps not the fenqing). The point being that the other nations/regions/ethnic groups are taking advantage of an opportunity that is denied to Chinese. I feel that this is ultimately everyone’s loss.
On a somewhat unrelated point: I don’t really see sites like RenRen as competition to Facebook, any more than I see Baidu as a true competitor to Google. In each case, one is a website/product driving an internationalist trend and the other is confined (and in a way confining users) to a national market. In a truly open field of competition, likewise, I don’t think that Google or Facebook’s gain would necessarily come at Baidu’s or Renren’s loss. As mentioned above, Chinese users who primarily want to connect with their school mates will make a natural choice there. Chinese users who also want to connect to the outside world will probably use both, depending on mood and need. In utility, it seems like comparing apples and oranges, or as the case may be, websites like Linkedin and Facebook–even if they both originated from the same basic template, or one stole from the other.
[...] (2010) Why Renren is better than Facebook. China Hush, April 5th. http://www.chinahush.com/2010/04/05/why-renren-is-better-than-facebook/ [Accessed April 10, [...]
The great come out that you should take is that this situation is a very sure one; its owns are secure enough and every dealings will be done in the right manner. The transactions that are handled by this site are encrypted in place to make you feel safe when using its holds. The web site will also provide you with trusted and fast download; all the download helps are cheap enough in order not to ruin you but you experience to pay attention to the fact that every download process is getting to depend on various things.
The above is an example of the shortcomings of some software programs. Please, good people, when comparing Chinese based websites with international websites, you do know that the Chinese websites are faster because the Chinese internet is regulated and structured to make it so. It’s certainly not because the founders have better applications. Also if you think that Chinese websites have reliable encryption to ensure anonymity, you are sorely misinformed.
Sharing your sincere thoughts is what makes Social Networking great but probably not so wise to do in China.
You’ve got your profile page, so they know your stats, friends, pictures…you really can’t get away with anything that the government frowns upon.
Sadly Facebook has become the same thing. Zuckerberg sold everyone out and now FB is just a wet dream for every marketer.
I wonder what what impact this will have on Social Networking in general.
Worst Case: Being sincere will cost you a future job opportunity or just a bunch of artificial BS like photoshopped to death profile pictures, short comments to get popularity instead of expressing your opinion as CC mentioned, coz no one is able to read long texts anymore. It’s really a pity because of what Social Networking could have been but there is always a greedy bastards who would ruin it for the rest!
This is so not true. Renren is a sub-par copy cat version of facebook and will forever be that way.
Renren is a very good a representation of what China is: throw every possible feature in a basket and call it the best thing that ever existed. The reason that facebook is so popular and good is because it’s specialized. It succeeds in its main goal of connecting people. That is all. Renren wants to be everything: a forum, a charity, a political outlet, a marketing tool. It’s the perfect grotesque hybrid of social networking.
Charities should be charities and forums should be forums. You can’t be great at anything if you are decent at everything. Renren will definitely expand its features for revenue generation and as a corporate strategy of becoming the dominant player in the chinese social networking industry, but it will still be less effective and enjoyable than facebook to use. More customization and features ≠ better product. Look at myspace and facebook, which one’s gaining marketshare?
And also, the very very annoying and gay “last visited” feature. This basically deters people from knowing distant friends better. Everyone will just stick to their own small social circles as going to the page of someone that you don’t know so well is akward.
Renren is not a proactive tool in getting people connected. It’s decent and people use it because it is unique. Other than that: facebook-ripoff.
Isn’t Facebook to some extent a Myspace ripoff, which was originally to some extent a Friendster ripoff? Internet applications often mirror each other, and along they way they add cool or lame new features. Who cares? S
When Facebook is allowed to legally operate in China, we’ll settle the question of which social networking site is more appealing. That may not tell us which site has better features, but then again consumers don’t always make the best consumption decisions. One thing you certainly won’t see, however, is Tibetans, Xinjiangren or rights activists socially networking through either site about things that are subjectively important to them. Child-molesters, serial killers and Al-Qaeda can’t openly socially network in the U.S., but who would argue that these things are morally equivalent to pro-independence or rights movements?
tigamanter, comparing ethnic freedom fighters with child molesters, you are one brain washed A*S*S*H*O*L*E!!!!!
Everything renren does facebook does better (with applications). Renren simply is a Chinese production and Facebook is international, so Facebook is blocked because it cannot be controlled and renren is controlled locally and pays “taxes” no doubt to keep it that way.
The fact is, people should be able to choose which one they like instead of buying a VPN like hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens now do to circumvent various blocks.
(Like Taiwan’s world of warcraft)
hahahaha, renren = chinese copy cat version of friendster, with the blog and endless visitors tracking, and where is friendster? dead.
People only use renren because they can’t access anything better, just like people watch CCTV because they can’t access BBC. Wake up and smell the good world chinese people!
tigamanter, comparing ethnic freedom fighters with child molesters, you are one brain washed A*S*S*H*O*L*E!!!!!