www.renren.com

1. RenRen Network www.renren.com Bus 111 Qiaozhaohuan Wang

2. RenRen Network • Renren is a Chinese social networking service that is similar to Facebook. • Renren is a typical SNS with a variety of functions with its own characteristics. • Most functions are just the same as those in Facebook, so Renren is also called "Chinese Facebook". • In generally, it update once or twice a year when the system’s functionalities requires rectification and further development. • In addition, it will change the web page design in some special days, like Spring Festival, National day.

3. History of RenRen Network • Xiaonei was started in December 2005 by University of Delaware graduates Wang Xing, Tsinghua University graduates Wang Huiwen, Lai Binqiang and Tang Yang. • In October 2006, Xiaonei.com was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI), a Chinese Internet consortium that created a similar college social network called 5Q. And Wang left Xiaonei in July 2007. • In March 2008, Xiaonei launched its WAP version, which users can access through mobile phones. • Xiaoneifeatures an instant messaging service, which is called Renrenzuomian;designed typically for its users using XMPP, which is more popular than Facebook chat.

4. History of RenRen Network • In August 2009, Xiaonei officially changed its name to Renren, as well as its domain to www.renren.com. • This name change from 'inside the school' (Xiaonei校内) to 'everybody' (renren人人) reflected the expansion aspirations held by Oak Pacific - No more a network dedicated to students but the biggest Chinese social network website, which spreads throughout the society. • In April 2011, the company filed with the SEC to raise $584 million in a US IPO, offering Renren stocks in the New York Stock Exchange. The company reported 2010 revenue of $76 million USD.

5. RenRen Profile • As Xiaonei mainly caters for college students, the key information to make one’s identity effective is college, high school, middle school and hometown. • At present, 32,000 universities and colleges, 56,000 high schools and 85,000 companies in China and 1,500 universities in 29 other countries are available on Xiaonei’s confirmation system. The social networks for each of these specified colleges, schools and companies have been established. • In the additional section of personal profiles, users can also put on information about their contact information, hobbies, favorite music, movies, the clubs they joined, etc. To personalize the profile, xiaonei has also developed functions to edit profile music and background.

6. RenRen Friends • A registered user can constantly add old or newly-acquainted friends to the friend list. • By specifying the educational information in the profile, a user may easily find other users that tally with his/her intention. High school or college students are prone to find this advantageous when searching friends. • Users can be also affiliated with groups of established titles (usually an existent class, school or organization). • Users could also be friend with Fan Pages; which could be understand as “follow.”

7. RenRen Applications and censorship • There are some common kinds of expressions on Xiaonei, such as renewing the mood (lit. updating personal state), blogging, voting and sharing others’ blogs. • Besides, users upload photos, share photos, articles and external links (usually videos). Leaving a message or commenting any of a photo, blog, state, etc. is quite commonly seen; the interacting users leaving and replying the messages is considered a prominent instance of basic communication on Xiaonei. Activities can be held online by calling on friends to participate. • There are also several peripheral applications, such as online mini games, regular games, doggies, testing, parking lot, selling and buying of friends. • However, Xiaonei’s censorship is fairly strict, especially to sensitive keywords in the blogs, compared with other SNS websites in China. Blogs containing sensitive keywords cannot be released. Others that are suspicious or in possible relation to political topics, obscenity and thrillers, have to be manually censored by the administrators before they are released; this may postpone the blog to be exposed to online friends, and sometimes the blog may be blocked.

8. RenRen Academic Studies • Unlike many other social networks, Renren has actively collaborated with academic researchers to understand the growth and structure of its user community. • The results have produced several academic publications. One of the first studies studied the Renren social graph structure, and found it similar to prior studies of Facebook's social graph. • The study also used Renren's unique feature, a per-user "recent visitors" log, to create an anonymous history of users and how they browse each others profiles, which was the first of its kind. • A second study detailed the process of analyzing and improving detection of fake users (also called Sybil accounts) on Renren.

9. RenRen Points and levels • Renren users earn "points" for various activities, such as logging in regularly, posting updates, and receiving comments and replies from contacts. • As users earn points, their "level" on the website increases, and at certain levels users gain extra privileges such as access to additional emoticons, skins for their profile, and the ability to view other user's profiles without others' knowledge. • Alternatively, users can gain access to all privileges by paying a monthly fee to become a VIP user.

10. RenRen Bean • The RenRenDou, or RenRen beans, is the virtual currency on Xiaonei. • Due to some functions charging users fees, Xiaoneidou can be used to purchase gifts, commence the Purple Bean service, exchange for game coins and advertise. (1 RMB is equivalent to 1 RenRendou.)

11. Resources • RenRen. 2 April, 2012. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renren • RenRen Official Website. 2012. www.renren.com