Attack of the Facebook clones: Russia’s Vkontakte

September 5, 2007 | Eric Eldon | Comments | |

vkontact-logo.pngInternational 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:

new-alexa-vk.jpg

Vkontakte’s brilliant design:

eric-vk.jpg

And, let’s not forget, StudiVZ’s red version:

studivz.jpg

Finally, there’s Xianei’s welcome page – like Facebook’s, but featuring an ad for upcoming Beijing Olympics (proud advertising partner: Coca Cola).

xiaonei.jpg

Thanks, Igor!

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.

  • Chris
    this copy debate is sooo lame...
  • 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...
  • Jared
    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.
  • "v kontakte" means "in touch"
  • Mo
    And, Chinese clone of google: http://baidu.com and of craigslist: http://edeng.cn
  • gougi
    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.
  • 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!
  • Facebook makes money from advertisers. So far, copycat sites do not get revenues from ads. Why bother to shut them down.
  • Thanks for the Russian site information.
  • Snoop
    BORING!!!!
  • Yarovyy, Yaroslav
    Vkontakte means "in contact", not "virtual contact", you dumb ass
  • abcd
    °°°°°°Vkontakte rulezzzzzzzzzzz and Facebook suxxxxxxxxxx°°°°°°° ^^
  • bill gates
    no one holds a million dollar bill in hand without
    my permission
    case closed
  • Didrick
    These clones are worth their weight in gold having a look and feel identical to the old Facebook design now that Zuckerberg & Co decided to mess things up on what used to be a sleek and tidy looking social networking site. After getting frustrated with the new look of Facebook, I heard about VKontakte so I decided to check it out and I love it now, I spend way more time there than on the new Facebook and I recommend that othes check it out as well. Non-russians (like myself) will automatically get an english version of the site when entering the URL in the browser.

    Does anyone know if there is/will be an english version of StudiVZ available?
  • Torov
    Facebook has been well-known to keep personal information long after a profile is deleted and any photographs hosted in FaceBook now becomes the property of Facebook as pre-agreed in the Terms of Use policy and agreements made by [you] the user, and FaceBook itself. Therefore, having the world wide web providing a healthy comptetition places FaceBook on check... I mean, we don't want a "dictatorship" of social networks do we? [In which we have absolutely no choice?] Each and every single individual having their basic most fundamental rights to privacy being stripped away? People around the world enjoy utitlizing such a powerful search engine within a social network.

    Many advent users feel that FaceBook is behaving in a rather totalitarianism manner. Recording all emails, log in locations, the time a user logs in and for how long till they logged off, photographs, websites addresses, people [you] the user socialize within the network itself, and the very apps accepted and utilized. Therefore, I would feel much more "comfortable" utilizing a trusted social network for my friends and family without the risk of my information being sold/granted to persons of any privilage. Ofcourse, this entire article is solely opinionated. Such sites must undergo a litigation process inorder to fully verify if such sites are causing damage/harm to FaceBook themselves, and if such sites appear to be identicle while violating any [or if any] patents FaceBook has (or may have) registered in a patent. Although, I see a clear difference in the look of FaceBook and other "mock" (As opinionated by: Eric Eldon: "Attack of the Facebook clones" and "International ripoffs of successful web companies" quoted at the beginning of his article simplified "mock-sites" in accordance to the article) sites such as Vkontakte, StudiVZ, and Xianei!

    Perhapse a side by side comparison would've been beneficial to the reader. Apparently Facebook hasn't seeked any legal action (at the time) against these companies, and their websites ARE still available in cyber-space...

    A former Facebook user now advent "в контакте" user.

    *** Correction; Vkontakte doesn't mean "virtual contact" Please look up your sources carefully! To translate this from Russian to English (or any language) it would literally mean "In Contact"

    в=in and контакте=contact