About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

After about two week at one of my newer gigs, the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall, I’ve a good idea what the average Chinese, born in the 1980s, uses on the Web. I also have an idea of what the more “internationalized” mainland surfer uses.

So, here’s what the Chinese Netizenry uses, Web 2.0-wise…

• Xiaonei: A lot.

The number one SNS in mainland China is not Facebook, but what they’ve resorted to calling “China’s Facebook”, with or without the controversial-it-may-be “copy” moniker.

Indeed, Xiaonei is all the rage. Its primary targets — students and white-collar workers — are pretty much the bulk of contacts for yours truly, which is why he’s in touch with 23 (and counting!) fellow uni and workplace colleagues.

There are other SNS networks around, such as Wealink and Hainei, but for David Feng, Xiaonei is the biggest mainland SNS on his radar right now. It’s just that he doesn’t check in all too often.

But a lot more these days.

• Facebook: Not everyone, but quite a few.

Facebook is home to more expats and folks outside China than mainland Chinese, mainly because of its interface, which is mainly English (although they’ve a Chinese translation underway), and because its servers are outside China. If you’ve known the Chinese Internet for any period of time, it’s strikingly similar to a massive intranet.

Facebook has a few of David’s friends. Mostly, they’re probably overseas Chinese or Chinese bloggers who’ve “made it” to the “big, outside World”. Not every Chinese blogger is there, but the “bigs” are almost guaranteed there.

• Twitter: “Internationalized” folks and the well-known (mostly).

Microblogging hasn’t taken off big-time in China (you’ll see that as we move on). Those tweeting along aren’t in China — yours truly is the obvious exception. Producing just under 500 tweets a week, David must be one of the more prolific tweeters around China — or in the Twittersphere (a guess only, though!).

Oddly eough, local services such as Jiwai.de or Fanfou are still pretty much “in the dark”. Few people I’ve spoken to are on those services — except for those I’ve met at Tweetups.

• LinkedIn: Expats only?

LinkedIn is very much “foreign language” in the Chinese Internet sphere, according to yours truly. He knows like about one or two mainland users on LinkedIn. And that’s about all.

Why? Language factor, servers outside nation, plus the “complexity” and “pro-ity” of the service are big bets here. Also, a lack of users from China — especially mainland users — make LinkedIn all that “new” and “strange” to locals.

I’ve also met very few mainlanders who use other services considered “pro-ish” such as Xing and Dopplr. It’s an odd, pro world here. Very few “compatriots”. All “expats”. Hmm…

• MSN (Windows Live Messenger): A lot.

On to more familiar territory, though: a lot of people use MSN (Windows Live Messenger). People who use MSN, though, are more likely to be people working at “white-collar enterprises”, be they at HP, Apple, or state-owned enterprises.

MSN is big. I’ve pretty much the bulk of my “recent contacts” on MSN. In fact, MSN is such a big part of Web life and real life (indeed!) that the China Merchants Bank released an MSN-themed credit card a few years ago.

• QQ: Just about everyone.

Finally, we move on to the very mundane. QQ is common currency in the Chinese Internet. Just about everyone I’ve met uses QQ, which finally also has an official Mac version.

QQ is big. QQ is like a Web republic in its own right. It uses QQ currency, gives you a QQ second life, and has a news center. QQ is “it” for a lot of people. It’s got everything they want.

QQ is probably less “biz” and more “life” as in MSN is thought more of belonging to office desk, while QQ is probably what romantic couples use at home (or even solo people!).

That’s pretty much a quickie intro based on what I’ve seen on the Chinese Web 2.0 scene. Note the presence of IM as a “1.0″ aspect. China is moving quickly to Web 2.0, but it’s not forgetting its 1.0 roots, either.