Campus SNS Site Tongxue Nabs $6M Investment

 Campus social networking site Tongxue.com has received investment of $6 million from venture capital firms and the Tano China Private Equity Fund I (TCPEFI), reports ChinaVenture. Tongxue.com expects to grow from its current 10 million users, 70% of whom are college students, to surpass 30 million registered users by the end of 2009, reports qq.com quoting company President Zhu Huaming. Tongxue.com has completed the $6 million in funding as well as some previous angel investments, and it expects to break even in 2010, said Zhu. Zhu said the $6 million investment can support the site for two to three years, and it plans to spend most of the funding on product innovation and brand promotion. Tongxue.com currently has twenty to thirty employees, said Zhu. The site was founded as FaceRen.com in May 2006 and changed its name to Tongxue.com in March 2008.

Sohu's ChinaRen Adds SNS Functions

Sohu (Nasdaq:SOHU) has updated its alumni site ChinaRen.com to offer social networking functions including a personal homepage that lists contacts, groups, blogs, greetings, latest visitors and photos, reports ccw.com.cn. ChinaRen has nearly 100 million users and more than 1 million unique daily logins, said the report. Sohu acquired ChinaRen in 2000, one year after the site was launched.

Sohu Nears SNS Product, Sougou Includes Baidu, Google Results

Sohu (Nasdaq:SOHU) has almost finished testing its social networking service (SNS) product but would not specify the product's release date, reports ChinaByte quoting the company's public relations department. Sohu has opened up the search rights of its search engine Sogou.com to include results from Baidu (Nasdaq:BIDU), Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) and other engines, said the report.

Sohu CEO Charles Zhang said in early January that the company planned to release an independent SNS product after China's Spring Festival (January 25 - February 1).

source:jlmpacificepoch.com/

Rumor: Sohu to Expand into SNS Market

Chinese Internet firm Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) is rumored to be preparing to enter the social networking service (SNS) business with a new product scheduled to be released soon. Sohu Blogs has also recently stated that it will abandon its policy of accepting only search engine crawls from its own Sogou search engine, and has once again begun to accept crawls from Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Google. A Sohu spokesperson said that the previous policy of refusing other search engine crawls was mainly to protect user privacy.

source:marbridgeconsulting.com

China Yahoo to E-Commercialize Koubei

Alibaba Group's daily life information website Yahoo Koubei (koubei.com) and social networking service Yahoo Guanxi will be "e-commercialized" in 2009 and eventually integrated into Alibaba's e-commerce system, reports qq.com quoting China Yahoo Public Relations Director Wang Tong. China Yahoo designated its life and email services and Yahoo Guanxi as its key businesses in an annual meeting, reports Sina quoting a company insider. The company established a sales team of more than 60 employees to generate profit from e-commerce in life services, and all China Yahoo resources will be put towards life services in 2009, said the insider.

China Yahoo currently has nearly 700 employees, including nearly 200 for Koubei, but only 20 maintain and update China Yahoo content, said the Sina report quoting Wang. Search and blog services will not be emphasized in the future, and China Yahoo will not spend more money on search traffic, said Wang. China Yahoo has stopped providing some download and upload functions for its online photo service and plans to shut down its new community platform on February 28 due to business restructuring.

51.com to Invest RMB 100 Mln on Gaming Infrastructure

Chinese social networking service (SNS) 51.com has revealed that it plans to invest a total of RMB 100 mln between 2009 and 2010 to be used toward improvements for basic network infrastructure to support its current gaming projects and provide a network operating environment for new gaming projects expected to be released this year. 51.com has already signed cooperative agreements with internet data center service providers, and network equipment providers and operators including Huawei, China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK), and China Unicom (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH). 2009 contracts amount to RMB 50 mln.

51.com has also denied rumors reportedly spread by competitors suggesting the company's cooperation with Huawei is simply a means to distract public attention from rumored large-scale layoffs.

source:marbridgeconsulting.com

Chinese SNS Website UUZone.com To Close In March 2009

UUZone.com, one of the first social networking service websites in China, has published a notice stating it will close all services in March 2009.
As one of the first batch of Chinese SNS websites, UUZone.com once gained over USD1 million investment from the venture capital firm Morningside Ventures. In 2005, the peak time for UUZone.com, its comprehensive power ranked first among the top nine Chinese SNS websites with three million registered users. Apparently it could not adequately maneuver a userbase of three million into making decent revenue, so the website must now close.
Morningside is probably licking its wounds now, and the website's closure comes after a number of missteps. In mid-December 2006, the third anniversary of UUZone.com, its founder Mao Zhihong departed from the company. At the end of February 2007, the website suffered problems that caused it to go offline, which caused concern among users. On May 15, 2007, UUZone.com dismissed many of its employees because of financial problems.

source:chinatechnews.com

SNS Site 51.com Targets Stronger Network Through Huawei Partnership

Shanghai-based social networking site 51.com confirmed that it has signed an agreement to obtain network equipment solutions from Huawei, and the site will announce the partnership soon, reports Sina. 51.com plans to spend over RMB 100 million on the cooperation, said the report.

Huawei may be preparing a project to provide software or services to online community operators like China Mobile's (NYSE:CHL, 941.HK) social networking service (SNS) site 139.com, said an unnamed employee. The equipment manufacturer began recruiting personnel via headhunters to build an SNS-related team last year, said the report.

source:jlmpacificepoch.com