Live from Beijing!

Most Chinese websites are copies of successful American ones.  This isn’t unique to China, of course.  All over the world, entrepreneurs and financiers look at the success of American websites, and decide to copy them into their local language.  This may be “lame” to purists, or alarming to those who believe that ideas and business models can somehow be protected legally, but it just makes sense.  If YouTube can be sold for billions, why not try a “Chinese YouTube”?  Or a ”Chinese FaceBook”?  Presumably the risk is lower.

But every so often something is invented in China that is unique.  These examples fascinate me, both because they typically provide insight into what’s happening in China today, and because they are candidates to be copied in other countries (such as, ironically, in the good ole US of A).  So this category is about my favorite “unique” Chinese websites.  Let me know if you have your own.

P.S.  Of course, no one has perfect knowledge of all websites in the world.  I certainly don’t!  So if you know of a site that precedes one of my examples of “Unique to China”, please let me know.