Social Networking Sites Boom

A report by knet.com.cn says by the end of 2010 social networking website users in China had reached 235 million, a rise of 59.18 million, or 33.7 percent, from 2009. So far 51.4 percent of the 457 million Internet users in China visit social networking websites. The report finds that men are more interested in the service, with the gender ratio standing at 57:43. Despite its exponential growth, social networking websites, particularly the small-time ones, face the challenge of increasing competition, since they provide similar products and services. Threats to their survival include being obscured by other Internet venues such as micro-blogging, limited resources of users, financing problems, stricter government regulation, and increasingly stringent requirements for licensing on-line game operations.