How Qzone Was Started – The Chinese Biggest Social Site’s Story

When Facebook is not allowed…

Facebook is the biggest social network the world has ever witnessed. It has spread all around the globe and there is nothing that can stop it… Except for the Great Wall of China, which in this case can be easily re-named to the Great Firewall of China. After Facebook was banned within the online space in the Asian country back in 2009, many local businesses began taking in the empty slot for a social network. Qzone is one of them. Unlike the others, Qzone provides its uses with a variety of possibilities, when it comes to personalization of the way your words come out to the other world.

Qzone is a product of the Chinese publicly owned company Tencent which handles mobile value-added and online advertising services and It was created in 2005. It was planned as just an addition to the many social offers it provides its customers with but soon after its release on the World Wide Web back in 2005 it turned out to be something a lot bigger than just an additive.

According to the latest reports, Qzone has more than 563,000,000 users and counting (Facebook has around 840 000 000). That is sort of managing to compare itself with even the big names in the field such as the above mentioned Facebook and the good old MySpace. These numbers are showing just how much the Chinese nation needs a social network; however, it doesn’t need to be a monopolist such as Mark Zuckerberg’s or somebody else’s. And if you’re wondering, no – not everyone is active as much as Tencent probably wishes – just about 150,000,000 out of the registered users are updating their profiles at least once a month. The others are somewhat passive. However, unlike in Facebook and all the other places around, one thing is certain – there is no such massiveness in making multiple accounts when the service is paid, making these numbers very trustworthy.

Blogging by words, videos or images, sharing experience and ideas, quotes, relationships and everything else there is in real life – it is also in Qzone. However, this state of the social networking art does not come cheap – almost every feature in the media is paid and that is probably why many Chinese people prefer to use Renren and Sina Corp’s sites. And yet, quality is said to come at a price, and because of this, some contempt users won’t let a single bad word be said about Qzone. Moreover, business is going in a straight upward line for Tencent and their social web, while the same cannot be said for either Google Plus or Windows Live.

As the hype of saying everything you do, think and want through the Internet to total strangers continue, many new media are appearing. Will there be a new Facebook? Probably, why wouldn’t there be? Could it be Qzone? It can easily be, but for this, it needs to change from Chinese-only to worldwide and try to fight China’s anti-Facebook battle openly one-on-one.