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Networking Site Ushi.cn - the Chinese LinkedIn

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What is Ushi.cn?

Never heard of Ushi.cn? Well, it is the Chinese version of LinkedIn and chances are they will become number 1 in China.

I am the owner of a company that does a lot of business withChina and from time to time I get some interesting leads from LinkedIn, especially from joining discussions in the Groups. That is also how i heard about Ushi.cn.

Ushi means 'outstanding professionals' in Chinese, with a double meaning of 'competitive advantange'.

It is invitation only, so I got introduced by one of my LinkedIn buddies and joined Ushi.cn. I have been wondering lately whether this will be one field again on the Internet that a Chinese company will beat foreign parties as well. Think of Google losing from Baidu and Ebay from Taobao.com. Does Ushi.cn has the right strategy and features to be the number 1 social networking site in China and beat LinkedIn.com? Lets have a closer look with me.

Founders of Ushi.cn

Started February 2010

Co-founders Ushi.cn

Ushi.cn is not founded by some bright Internet nerds. Well, the founders are certainly smart, since Ushi.cn is started by CEO Dominic Penaloza together with 6 Chinese entrepreneurs and 100 'chartered' founders that have connected their name and reputation to the concept.

Peneloza, a Chinese serial entrepreneur grown up in Canada, was also founder of Worldfriends.tv, a cross-cultural travel social networking service where you can meet travel friends and explore the world.

Have a look at some of the names of the co-founders of Ushi.cn:

Other founders of Ushi.cn

  • Fan Bao (CEO): an investment banker and founder of Renaissance Partners. Mr. Bao was Chief Strategy Office of AsiaInfo Holding (Chinese IT company listed on NASDAQ) and worked for Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse.
  • San Eng: founding partner of SMC Guolian RMB Fund and head of Private Equity for SMC in China. SMC is a leading alternative asset investment firm which has managed over US$ 1 Billion in assets.
  • William Chen: managing partner of DT Capital Partners. Chen is a Harvard graduate and founded Accelerrgy, an R&D technology company that develops advanced materials for alternative energy applications and Onepage an enterprise software company that developed a suite of portal products and management tools for the corporate market.
  • Dr. Jovan Hsu: founder and partner of venture capitalists The Chinese Founder Fund. He earlier started Chinbid.com which was merged with Eachnet.com and later acquired by Ebay
  • Bill Liao: an Australian entrepreneur who has participated in seven IPO's. Co-founder of German networking site for professionals Xing.com.
  • Raymond Yang: founder of Taishan Invest, one of the financers of Ushi.cn.

Ushi.cn is doing pretty good so far

Login Ushi.cn

Smart first move with the 100 chartered members. Quality members for a networking site is very important and these 100 very influential China business people with International allure have started on Ushi.cn and most importantly: they are active on it. This high quality members base with people everyone wants to connect with manages to attract a lot of people.

Their mission is simple: to become the #1 networking site for professionals in China. In a 1.6 billion crowded country where people generally will not do business with you after building a genuine relationship during several dinners and drinks, called 'Guanxi' in China, the market potential is huge. We already had the Facebooks of China such as Renren.com and Kaixin001.com and the MSN Messenger of China, QQ but no similar site for Linkedin.com.

Well, not a site of the potential to become the Chinese LinkedIn.com. We have seen concepts like Tianji.com and Wealink.com that are professional networking sites as well, but not with the driving force of a quality user base like Ushi.cn. I think this is the number 1 USP for Ushi.cn. You know, a networking drink in the fanciest bar is nothing when no influential people attend...

China is in my opinion big enough for its own professional networking website and Chinese people still prefer to communicate in Chinese. Linkedin is not in Chinese. So Ushi.cn started successfully in February 2010 with this user base and now has about 20.000 users.

Key features of Ushi.cn

Not that many just yet

Homepage Ushi.cn

When looking at Ushi.cn you notice immediately that it is 'inspired' by LinkedIn to say the least ;) The look and feel is the same, with the white blue logo and website template.

Even the usability is the same, pay attention to the navigation menus in the upper right corner and the side panels. So to review the features with of Ushi.cn it is best to compare it with LinkedIn.com. But first some info at a glance for you:

1. The team behind Ushi.cn is mainly Chinese to have good understanding of the market
2. Ushi.cn aims to facilitate Guanxi in China, they know it will never replace it.
3. Right now about 70% of the members is Chinese, the rest are expats or foreigners. Majority from the biggest business cities Beijing and Shanghai.
4. It is a bilingual website. If you get invited in English your Ushi.cn will be in English. Otherwise in Chinese

Ushi.cn compared to LinkedIn

Ok, lets compare the Ushi.cn features with LinkedIn.......well there are not many features on Ushi.cn that are unique just yet. Basically it is a clone of Linkedin, which is not a bad thing, why reinvent the wheel?

1. Ushi.cn is invite only. I got mine from LinkedIn ;)
2. People you may know suggestions
3. Find friends by email (MSN, Gmail, Outlook and Chinese web mails)
4. Import friends from contacts on computer or Xing.com (another LinkedIn clone from Germany, of Ushi.cn co-founder Bill Liao)
5. Start and join groups managed by members
6. There is no advertising yet on the website. Focus is on increasing user base. Inside information tells they are working on an advertising model.
7. Micro blogging feature: you can follow members or it displays all updates by default
8. No Job section on it (yet)
9. Uses 'coins' for services on the website. You can buy them with Internet Banking or with the Chinese Paypal 'Alipay'. Here is their description:

Ushi Coins are needed to buy services in Ushi. For example, you need to spend Ushi Coins to send a message to Ushi members beyond your first degree Connections. Each message costs 10 Ushi Coins. Messages are the most direct and effective communication method in Ushi. By sending messages, you will be able to get in touch with a vast number of Ushi members. At the same time, the quality of user experience inside Ushi is preserved at a high level

10. It has an iPhone app download

The amount of visitors compared to LinkedIn is of course very little right now. But lets see how the line in the graph below of Ushi.cn will approach that of LinkedIn in the future....

Will Ushi.cn beat LinkedIn in China?

There is a chance....

Ushi.cn in Chinese

RIght now, Ushi.cn has the functionalities of the earlier versions of LinkedIn. But they are yet 6 months online now, so I am sure they are working on a new release with more cool features as we speak.

If i could recommend anything to Ushi.cn is to integrate with other Internet tools and applications. With tools that LinkedIn also has, like Twitter and Wordpress but certainly with China specific tools to gain that competitive advantage over LinkedIn. Think of Chinese micro blogging sites TaoTao.com and Fanfou.com. Give people a reason to choose Ushi.cn over Linkedin besides the awesome user base. Key is also to keep the quality user base and expand it.

I am on LinkedIn for quite some time right now and I have noticed there are not many very active Chinese members. Most of the Chinese members are looking for or maintaining relationships with people outside China. But what about all the other white collar workers in China that want to maintain the Guanxi with people in China only? They might all go to Ushi.cn...

I am looking forward to a next release of Ushi.cn with extended features and it will be my pleasure to write about it again. So what do you think about Ushi.cn? Please share your experiences with us if you have used it and vote in our poll.

Finally, if you want an invitation for Ushi.cn, drop me a line and I will sent you an invitation!

Ushi.cn vs. Linkedin in China Poll

in 5 years, which professional networking site will be nr. 1 in China?

Vote

Skip voting, see results

What do you think of Ushi.cn? Leave a comment!

submit
  • Reply
    clanss Dec 3, 2010 @ 12:42 pm
    The thing is it's invitation only. So it alienates a lot of users. I was interested in Ushi.cn, but just didn't know where to get the invitation.
    I work as a contractor to Korean governments, so there are a lot of opportunities to work with China, and been looking for something like Ushi,cn, now I'm just searching for alternative.
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“Finally, a selection of what is being said about Ushi and social media in China on the web right now”

Comments on other sites about this article

China Media News
(Twittered:) Networking Site Ushi.cn: the Chinese LinkedIn - with comparison and outlook

http://www.squidoo.com/review-of-ushi-cn-the-chinese-linkedin

The goal of this new, still invitation-only networking site is to become the #1 of its kind for professionals in China with the focus on building a quality user base, starting with one hundred internationally renown "chartered members".

The article provides a brief description of some of the founders, key features and a ten-point comparison with LinkedIn (e.g.: at Ushi.cn one needs "coins" for certain added-value web services). An outlook on whether Ushi.cn will beat LinkedIn in China is also given.

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