matt
wasn't the facebook also a rip off of another site from harvard. who is ripping off who?
all the best.
jack

Copy cats competition is simply the nature of business in China. If anything appears interesting or has the prospect of making money, you can expect mushrooming copy cats in a short period of time(see my latest post). Especially in the Internet space, the barriers for entry are so low. But eventually, most of them will die out on their own.

In general, the Chinese culture is one where schools teach pre-subscribed solutions to problems, vs. creative thinking. This has led to many entrepreneurs to establish businesses that simply copy existing models instead of creating new ones. Walk down the street in any major Chinese city, such as Beijing and Shanghai, and this will become very evident as you pass shops offering identical goods block after block.

This story demonstrates that U.S. companies that have created a successful model need to be looking at the China market *now*, and determining how to get into the market before too many copycat firms arise. Ignoring this massive market, and hoping that their successful business will simply be ignored and not copied is not a tenable solution.

The good news is that there is a dearth of solid managers in China who possess a successful track record in running Internet businesses. So, the likelihood for long-term success for many of these competitive entities is low.
Of course if it is *your* company's business that is successfully copied, the lack of success for other copy cats firms will offer you little solace.

I don't think crying copycat in this case is warrented. This is simply competition. If this were copycatting, then all the ajax desktops you kept mentioning are copycats of each other, expedia is a copycat of travelcity, yahoo mail is a rip off of hotmail (or the other way around), and even pepsi is a rip off of coke. Where have all the lawsuits been in those cases?

george- you obviously didn't see the screen shots. this is more than a inarguably copycat...

Brandon - Well, I agree it's pretty bad taste to copy the look and feel almost exactly. But, would it have been all ok had they used different css and graphics? If the answer is yes, then all this fuzz about copycatting is just as shallow as a few lines of css. Copying a business idea is probably as old as business itself, EVERYWHERE in the world.

Maybe Al Gore can help you seeing how he invented the internet! Try giving him a call.

Getting interesting offers. How about getting it back to those Chinese with

Chinafacebook.com - It's for sale