Sarah Jane G.

Bautista
BA Comm 2
M1 Learning Activity 2.2

CYWORLD
● Cyworld launched in 1999 and was purchased by SK Communications in 2003.
● It became one of the first companies to profit from the sale of virtual goods. Cyworld was
wildly popular in its home market, with 2005 claims that nearly every South Korean in their
twenties and 25 percent of the South Korean population were users.
● Cyworld's reception in some overseas markets did not prove as enthusiastic, and by 2010
Cyworld had ended its operations in Germany, Japan, and the United States.
● As of 2009, it continues to provide service to the Chinese and Vietnamese markets where it
has subscriber bases of seven million and 450,000, respectively.
● In 2016, Cyworld was acquired by Aire, inc., which is owned by Freechal founder Jeon Jae-
wan.

PROS:
● Cyworld has provided a cyber space where users can readily express their feelings to
ilchons.
● It also allows the viewer of another person's minihomepy to get satisfaction from learning
about the other person's life.
● Celebrities have also employed minihomepies as a marketing strategy, using them to
enhance their image or to advertise programs that they are in.
● Largest revenue share due to established market.
● 90% market share
CONS:
● Invasion of privacy
● Irrelevance, exhaustions, lack of tangible benefits

RENREN
● Renren, which started as Xiaonei.com, was founded by a group of students, including Wang
Xing, Wang Huiwen and Lai Binqiang at Tsinghua University and Tianjin University in
December 2005.
● Joseph Chen, who had himself tried to launch a student community website called ChinaRen
as early as 1999 and sold it in 2000, acquired Xiaonei through his new company Oak Pacific
in October 2006.
● In August 2009, Xiaonei officially changed its name to Renren, as well as its domain to
www.renren.com.
● And also, the logo has changed from the Chinese word "xiaonei" to the Chinese word
"renren"("ren", meaning "people" or "person", and "everyone" when used twice in a row).
● This name change from 'inside the school' (Xiaonei 校 内 ) to 'everybody' (renren 人 人 )
reflected the expansion aspirations held by Oak Pacific – to be more than a network
dedicated to students, but instead be the biggest Chinese social network website.
PROS:
● It is probably the closest a Chinese internet firm can come to Facebook.
● Renren has a highly competitive management with much experience in social networks.
 ● It has build up a close relationship with (potential) advertisers and is making some money.
CONS
● Renren is not China’s equivalent of Facebook and is facing at home a brutal competitive
landscape.
● And while it might make money in the future, is does not do it yet.

ORKUT
● Orkut was a social networking service owned and operated by Google in its later years.
● Orkut was quietly launched on January 22, 2004 by Google.
● Orkut Büyükkökten, a Turkish software engineer, developed it as an independent project
while working at Google.

PROS:
● Lets you find people you may not have talked to/seen in a while
● Provides a quick communication/socializing tool
● Allows people to meet others with similar interests
● Is a place where photos can be shared to your friends over the internet

CONS:
● As with any online social networking community, a number of fake and cloned profiles
existed on Orkut
● incidents of racism among Orkut users were reported
● Could provide a network for illegal activity such as pornography/soliciting
● Could allow for predators to track young children

QQ
● QQ, is an instant messaging software service and web portal developed by the Chinese tech
giant Tencen
● Tencent QQ was first released in China in February 1999 under the name of OICQ
● QQ was first released as a "network paging" real-time communications service. Other
features were later added, such as chatrooms, games, personal avatars, online storage, and
Internet dating services.
● Tencent QQ holds the Guinness World Record for the highest number of simultaneous
online users on an instant messaging program with 210,212,085 users online on July 3,
2014

PROS:
● QQ offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging,
movies, and group and voice chat software.
● You can make high-end video and voice calls.
● The app encrypts all your calls. This would ensure the privacy of your calls and chat as well.
CONS:
● the app lacks valid impeccable features and finally this messaging software is somehow
complex in that it has too many interface menus.
● It monitors your system, reports your messages to god knows where, contains malware,
adware, and probably some viruses.