International ripoffs of successful web companies can be found everywhere, from Frazr, the German Twitter clone, to Digg Malaysia, the Malaysian clone of the news-ranking site Digg.
Not to be outdone, the Russian social network Vkontakte (or “virtual contact”) has copied Facebook’s look and feel almost exactly — not to mention its growth rate. See Alexa graph and screenshot gallery, below.
Copying Facebook has already turned out to be lucrative in other countries.
In Germany, Facebook clone StudiVZ was bought by a German publishing company for around $100 million; in China, Facebook clone Xiaonei was reportedly bought by a larger Chinese internet company for an undisclosed amount.
With all of the debate about who really invented Facebook, these copycats remind us that big ideas like social networking are about executing on a well-focused plan. For Facebook, it was college campuses in the US. For its competitors, it’s college campuses in other countries, in other languages.
The copycats are also reminders for Facebook: It should start building out localized versions for other countries, something it has failed to move quickly on. Apparently, Facebook already has an “Internationalization Team” at work, and is still hiring for it.
Vkontakte’s increasing Alexa rank:
Vkontakte’s brilliant design:
And, let’s not forget, StudiVZ’s red version:
Finally, there’s Xianei’s welcome page - like Facebook’s, but featuring an ad for upcoming Beijing Olympics (proud advertising partner: Coca Cola).
Thanks, Igor!
Tags: co:vkontakte12 Comments
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Chris said:
this copy debate is sooo lame…
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Igor said:
Great review and a good food for thought for all. It will be fun watching this happening. From business strategy point of view, this Web is a very unique medium - it’s unlikely that Ford or Sony or GE can copy-paste something of their competitors in a “niche market” and succeed as fast…
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Jared said:
Don’t hate on the copycats, everything about facebook was just a copy until a few months ago. That blue-blood ceo of theirs copied from housesystem and connectu, and friendster for that matter.
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Gene Linetsky said:
“v kontakte” means “in touch”
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Mo said:
And, Chinese clone of google: http://baidu.com and of craigslist: http://edeng.cn
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gougi said:
this article is stupid… this person has no knoweldge of social networks. They all embody similar features. Facebooks desing was not an innovative idea, its was also taken from other social networking sites and social networking books. So relax guys. Dont say bullshit when you dont know the industry.
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Android said:
I emailed the ‘creator’ of the Russian Facebook a while ago - he claims to have purchased the license, and that Facebook are aware of the website and support it!
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RalphM said:
Facebook makes money from advertisers. So far, copycat sites do not get revenues from ads. Why bother to shut them down.
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jansegers said:
Thanks for the Russian site information.
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Snoop said:
BORING!!!!
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Yarovyy, Yaroslav said:
Vkontakte means “in contact”, not “virtual contact”, you dumb ass
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abcd said:
°°°°°°Vkontakte rulezzzzzzzzzzz and Facebook suxxxxxxxxxx°°°°°°° ^^
2 Trackbacks
9:13 pm
Facebook Clones Flooding: Russia’s Vkontakte « Hyper Passionate Entrepreneurs said:
[...] FaceBook Copycats Flooding | Read more @ Venture Beat [...]
12:01 am
How To Predict The Future | How To Split An Atom said:
[...] I know this as a fact. Many of you are not based in the U.S. and as ubiquitous broadband proliferates this number will just grow. Any new developments in the web will need to take into account the global nature of the internet. Web services like Facebook have been slow in embracing this, much to their chagrin. [...]