Q & A on Xiaonei-Renren:

I see some interesting questions from you on Chinese Facebook: Xiaonei-Renren.

The first question is that why the users on Xiaonei network are more responsible than users on Facebook, whether it is because of the cultural difference. First of all, I don’t have much experience on Facebook, so I don’t quite understand why you have negative feeling about it. Then, form my perspective, there are some important reasons besides the cultural influences. The first reason I think is that the foundation of the Xiaonei users is college students who are somewhat in the same “unit”. We have many things in common and concerning about similar topics. And we feel happy to have a place to keep in touch with friends that we have little chance to meet face to face. Another important reason is the government internet control which avoids a lot of topics from the users.(This is also the reason why we can’t access to the Facebook.) Some sensitive topics, such as something about politics and religion, will be monitored and deleted in very short time. Also some bad dirty words will be avoided and deleted soon that we call this phenomenon “harmonizing”(there’s some ironic mood in it sometimes.) Here is a CNN video I’ve seen on Youtube talking about this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf_xMSrcYKY.

The second question about Xiaonei-Renren is that whether there is the trend of becoming popular for older generation. I do see the expansion of users at different positions and ages. And that is why Xiaonei(on campus) net work changed its name to Renren(everyone) network in 2009. Many people who have graduated from colleges long time ago join into Xiaonei, and some parents of those Xiaonei users are influenced by their kids to create accounts on Xiaonei. However, compared to Facebook, Xiaonei is still not that spread in different groups of people, and it’s still based on the student users. Honestly, I enjoy the condition of Xiaonei now that the majority of the users are students, because it’s like a huge virtual campus that is our students’ unique space.

I’m interested in Facebook very much, and curious about comparing these two similar but cultural different networks. Also, I hope to dig out more educational use of these two social networks in my future experience.