SubscribeEven Douban Cloned by Chinese Sites
It is not surprising to find a silicon valley site is cloned by China’s followers, and it is not usual to find a China’s site cloned by other China’s sites. But that’s what happened to Douban (profile).
Booktag is one of the copycat of Douban, and Smell is far worse by cloning everything of Douban, even the book and movie review by Douban’s users. The webmaster of Smell explained that it is only for experimental purpose, but I don’t think it is a reasonable excuse. NOTE: Smell has been stealing Douban user’s passwords by pretending that Douban’s registration worked there, so any Douban’s usres SHOULD NOT try to login in Smell using your Douban’s account!
Since Douban is so hot in China, almost everyone take it as a typical web2.0 site in China as what Flickr means to English world. I can understand that new comers want to learn and follow the successful models, but simply copying the web design does not mean you can copy the core competence, and even worse, how can your users trust a site without creativity and innovation.
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7 Responses to “Even Douban Cloned by Chinese Sites”
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Clone kills creativity
[...] Even Douban Cloned by Chinese Sites?China web2.0 review [...]
I suggest that you pull this article out. The clone site has been stealing Douban user’s passwords by pretending that Douban’s registration worked there.
It’s a security risk for us and spreading the news would give him free publicity.
Thanks!
It looks like a rip-off of allconsuming or 43places. The graphic design and layout is very, very similar- not to mention the way community features and user comments are implemented. It’s not original enough to be successful in the English speaking world…
Well… well, Jon, I have to jump out and speak for Douban here. Douban is not 43places or 43things, or any part of of them. Looked similar at the first sight, but when you have a second thought or compared them from a user’s stand point…
(Sorry, will write more tomorrow or some time. Too late here and still got work to do. But please understand that I am serious about discussing with you guys here. I am always argumentative and love friendly discussions. :-))
Another thing: Douban’s creator and founder Bo Yang seemed to frequent here as well. Bo, I don’t know you in person, but I read your stories and blogs and a keen user (though not writing any reading review there) of your Douban. I know you will have good explanations for Jon’s question raised regarding Douban’s discrepancy with 43places. Could you please read our discussions at first, and then comment? It will be helpful to me. I want to see if I truely understand Douban.
Douban may speedup!