Facebook and its “clones” studiVZ and Xiaonei

July 24th, 2008

It’s interesting to hear that Facebook is suing the German social networking site studiVZ for “cloning” them. Surely Facebook must be aware of China’s Xiaonei.com, which many people say bears an even closer resemblance to Facebook? Besides shouldn’t be Facebook be much more concerned about social networking sites in China - the country with the largest number of Internet users? I guess some possibilities as to what’s going on are:

Facebook and Xiaonei are negotiating some sort of agreement/settlement, thus avoiding a lawsuit
Facebook is preparing to take legal action against Xiaonei, however it’s taking more time because of Facebook’s unfamiliarity with the Chinese legal system
Facebook is still trying to figure out what to do, because they know Facebook might get blocked in China if they ruffle the wrong feathers by suing Xiaonei. Perhaps it is no coincidence that access to Facebook from within China has been choppy for the past few weeks.

Here is a screenshot of Xiaonei.com - you can judge for yourself how closely it may or may not resemble Facebook (click on the image for a larger view):