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Facebook, Twitter & SMS: Making communism harder everyday. It's really disconcerting to see China & other communist countries basically stealing American servic

Facebook, Twitter & SMS: Making communism harder everyday. It's really disconcerting to see China & other communist countries basically stealing American services and creating homebrew look alikes (Baidu, RenRen, etc). It makes penetrating their market damn near impossible.

code_duck 16y ago
How many other communist countries are there left besides China and North Korea, though? And is China even really communist any longer?
- ericmsimons 16y ago
  Well, China is kind of communist and so is Russia. Russia claims to be a democracy but (to my understanding) it's still nothing like an American/European democracy. Russia also has its own knockoff social networks and search engines. I've been told that Russia and China actually endorse these home grown equivalents because (big surprise) they require them to hand over all of the user data. China blocks Facebook but allows RenRen...and it now has 260 million users. That's more than a quarter of their population. China has to be cutting deals with them. And don't even get me started on Baidu vs Google...
  - code_duck 16y ago
    China is kind of capitalist, kind of socialist, and thus kind of fascist in that you have state-sanctioned corporate monopolies and industries. Same as Russia, I think. Regardless of the economic system, the one thing they're not, of course, is real democracies. I agree, the extent to which web services are copied by the Chinese for their own market is definitely an obstacle. They've done it with so many other products, I guess this is just another one.
Charuru 16y ago
I thought the founder of RenRen was an American? Or at least a Chinese in America. It's not his fault that Mark did not make a serious effort at internationalization until recently. You can't expect to start thinking about China 3-4 years after founding and expect the landscape there to be that same virginal ground as your home market. You need to be serious about it from year 1. Though of course that's not in the means of most companies... Maybe there's a startup idea here somewhere? Groupon seems to be on top of it though, so good for them.
- ericmsimons 16y ago
  My understanding is that China is blocking US websites that don't censor and/or hand over user data (ie Google, Facebook). The reason RenRen and Baidu have flourished is that they are handing over user data to the Chinese government. I wouldn't be surprised if China was even funding their operations. That information is critical when running a communist regime.

code_duck 16y ago

How many other communist countries are there left besides China and North Korea, though? And is China even really communist any longer?

ericmsimons 16y ago
Well, China is kind of communist and so is Russia. Russia claims to be a democracy but (to my understanding) it's still nothing like an American/European democracy. Russia also has its own knockoff social networks and search engines. I've been told that Russia and China actually endorse these home grown equivalents because (big surprise) they require them to hand over all of the user data. China blocks Facebook but allows RenRen...and it now has 260 million users. That's more than a quarter of their population. China has to be cutting deals with them. And don't even get me started on Baidu vs Google...
- code_duck 16y ago
  China is kind of capitalist, kind of socialist, and thus kind of fascist in that you have state-sanctioned corporate monopolies and industries. Same as Russia, I think. Regardless of the economic system, the one thing they're not, of course, is real democracies. I agree, the extent to which web services are copied by the Chinese for their own market is definitely an obstacle. They've done it with so many other products, I guess this is just another one.

Charuru 16y ago

I thought the founder of RenRen was an American? Or at least a Chinese in America. It's not his fault that Mark did not make a serious effort at internationalization until recently. You can't expect to start thinking about China 3-4 years after founding and expect the landscape there to be that same virginal ground as your home market. You need to be serious about it from year 1. Though of course that's not in the means of most companies... Maybe there's a startup idea here somewhere? Groupon seems to be on top of it though, so good for them.

ericmsimons 16y ago
My understanding is that China is blocking US websites that don't censor and/or hand over user data (ie Google, Facebook). The reason RenRen and Baidu have flourished is that they are handing over user data to the Chinese government. I wouldn't be surprised if China was even funding their operations. That information is critical when running a communist regime.