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Kaixin001.com Loses Its Domain Name
SHENZHEN, Oct 16, 2008 (SinoCast China IT Watch via COMTEX) --
Oak Pacific Interactive has bought the Internet domain name Kaixin.com from 35.com. The domain name was bought by Xiaonei.com, a subsidiary of Oak Pacific Interactive, on October 9, 2008. Kaixin.com is the Internet domain name mostly wanted by Kaixin001.com, one of the major competitors of Oak Pacific Interactive.
An executive from Oak Pacific Interactive says that he did not know the issue. And president of the company could not be reached so far.
Cheng Binghao, founder of Kaixin001.com, has diverted his mobile phone to his secretary, who says that she has not been authorized to answer any questions.
Kaixin001.com has gained its toehold in the social networking service market based on its innovative but controversial ideas. Its number of registered users has been growing exponentially. However, investors of Kaixin001.com are adopting a wait-and-see attitude as it could not gain the domain name Kaixin.com.
Though social networking service websites are nowhere near profitability, venture capital firms are still spending heavily in Chinese social networking websites.
Northern Light Venture Capital finalized a plan lately to bankroll Kaixin001.com USD 4 million to USD 5 million. And it is just the first round of investment, it will keep investing in the Chinese company in the future.
The fund-raising activity of Kaixin001 came shortly after Softbank invested USD 384 million in Oak Pacific Interactive and Giant Interactive Networking poured USD 51 million into 51.com.
Chinese social networking websites have made much headway during the past years. The top-ranking Xiaonei.com boasts of 30 million registered members, most of which are college students. As for Hainei.com, Yiqi.com, and Kaixin001 have about 1 million registered users, respectively.
And they have been under the spotlight of venture capital companies. In May 2007, 51.com got investment from software giant Intel, and Zhanzuo.com was financed by Sequoia Capital. In May 2008, Japan-based Softbank purchased 40% stakes in Oak Pacific Interactive, the parent company of Xiaonei.com. In this July Giant Interactive Networking took over 25% stakes of 51.com.
51.com hopes to be up to scratch for listing in the coming to two years and get listed on NASDAQ, according to Pang Dongsheng, chairman and chief executive officer of the company.
Some experts believe that it is too early for Chinese social networking websites to talk about going public since they are still far away from a sustainable and profitable business model. Now the most urgent need of them is to turn their huge website traffic into profits.
From www.hexun.com, Page 1, Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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