Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » renren Media

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg Disagree About Doing Business In China

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:40:04 +0000

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg are in disagreement about getting Facebook into China. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is “wary about he compromises the company would need to make to do businesses in China,” wrote Bloomberg’s Brad Stone in a profile of Sandberg.

However Zuckerberg believes that Facebook can be an agent of change in China. Nothing is decided yet about whether Facebook will enter China as the company has a long term perspective on it.

While Facebook is mulling over the decision, their Chinese competitor Renren is the most used social network in the Asian country. As a matter of fact, Renren recently had an IPO and is now valued at about $5.16 billion on the U.S. stock exchange.

Chinese Social Network Renren Went Public Today, Hoping To Raise $743.3 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 03 May 2011 18:37:00 +0000

Renren Inc (NYSE:RENN) is the largest social network in China based on pageviews. The company is hoping to raise $743.4 million as they went public today. Renren is offering 53.1 million American depositary receipts for about $12-$14 each. Renren may have a market value of around $5.1 billion. Renren means “everyone” in Chinese. They have over 117 million users. Renren was able to gain traction as Facebook has been banned in China. [BusinessWeek]

Chinese Facebook Clone Renren.com Filing To Go Public In U.S.

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:51:25 +0000

Renren.com is a social networking website based in China that looks almost exactly like Facebook. Renren has hired Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group, and Deutsche Bank AG to advise them on a $500 million expansion plan through an IPO in the U.S.

Renren.com was able to grow quickly because Facebook and Twitter is blocked in China through a web filtering process. Facebook launched a Chinese-language version in 2008, but it was blocked entirely in China. The Chinese government did not explain why Facebook was blocked.

Renren means “everyone” in Chinese and they have over 160 million users. It started one year after Facebook and tens of millions of college students signed up.

[WSJ]

Oak Pacific Interactive, Chinese Company Behind Renren and Nuomi, Is Considering A U.S. IPO

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:08:37 +0000

[Renren Screenshot]

Oak Pacific Interactive is a Chinese Internet company that has created the “Facebook of China” called Renren and the “Groupon of China” called Nuomi. Oak hired Creduit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG to underwrite the IPO. The IPO is expected to take place sometime next year. This year there were 35 Chinese IPOs in the U.S, including Youku and DangDang. [Fast Company]

Recent Tech Funding: Voxpop, OutSpark, HyperText Solutions, RoofTop Comedy, The Onion News Network, Crush or Flush, Glimpse

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 01:20:36 +0000

VoxPop Network Corporation is based in San Francisco, CA. Voxpop is an online entertainment company which is short for Vox Populi (“voice of the people” in Latin). Voxpop.tv is a contest website startup that has basketball conference contests and also publishes its games on third party websites such CBS Radio and Entertainment Weekly. The investor is David Shen and he is a former VP of User Experience and Design Team at Yahoo! for 8 years. Other companies that Shen has funded in include Outspark Inc. (see below)Meetro Inc., Search Physics Inc., and Fanlib Inc.
Some of the featured games on Voxpop include:
- Logo Showdown, a game where you choose and vote for your favorite SEC /ACC/Big 12 sports team logos and create a bracket.
- Angelic Angelina, a game where you create a bracket of Angelina Jolie’s best acting movies.
- Several others that involve creating a bracket of your favorite type of sandals, handbags, Brad Pitt movie, etc.
Some of the prizes include cash and a copy of the movie that won the bracket.

Another company that was angel funded by Yahoo! alumni, David Shen is OutSpark Inc. [website currently unavailable]. Other investors include Altos Ventures and Doll Capital Management. Outspark is expected to develop casual Adobe Flash games of all types. OutSpark Inc. is currently in “stealth mode.”

Hypertext Solutions, LLC considers itself, “the first Internet application to tap the potential of ‘intelligent’ data on the Web.” Steve Hall of Vulcan Capital is an investor. The company is actively seeking computer engineers in the areas of A.I., data mining, and JavaScript.

Rooftop Comedy is a San Francisco, CA based company that has recently raised angel funding. The company won the the award for best investment idea at Investorfest 2006. The company was created and run by Will Rogers, former Senior Vice President of Icon Medialab’s Web Development group. RooptopComedy has been partnering with comedy clubs in different areas to put their skits online. They include Funny Bone (St. Louis, MO), Go Bananas (Cincinnati, OH), Crackers Comedy Club (Indianapolis, IN), San Francisco Comedy Club (San Francisco, CA), and Chicago Underground Comedy (Chicago, IL).

TheOnion.com is taking their parody news services to the world of video. The company invested $1 million into the idea of the Onion News Network (ONN) and will be a parody of news program channel, CNN (The Cable News Network). Below is a video teaser of the upcoming programming:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2C0ZZIKi3Y[/youtube]

IceBreaker Inc.is a Seattle based mobile software company that outsources development to Beijing, China. IceBreaker Inc. is the parent company of Crush or Flush which was launched on January 16, 2007 with the purpose of providing a way to flirt, chat, and meet people with similar interests in your area on mobile phones. When browsing Crush or Flush on your mobile phone, you can click on “crush” if you think the profile picture is attractive or “flush” if you think that the profile picture is not very aesthetic.Investors of Crush or Flush are several angel investors and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The founders of Crush or Flush are Michael Robinson and Eric Hennings, both former Microsoft employees. Robinson has previously created a website in China called renren Media. renren Media has previous funding by News Corp.

Glimpse.com is a website for centralizing fashion shopping offers. The target audience of Glimpse.com is for women that shop at stores such as Banana Republic, eLuxury, Macy’s, DKNY, etc. The company was founded by Frank Han (general manager of HSN.com), Jane Saltzman (Executive Vice President in Creative and Merchandising at Discovery Channel), and Steve Lemon (Vice President at Symantec). The amount of funding is not disclosed, but is supposedly a large amount. The funding was provided by Greylock Partners and Redpoint Ventures.

[Information Source: alarm:clock]