Hot American social pin-board site Pinterest may still be in beta, but Chinese social network Renren (RENN, quote) has cloned it already(!) and added a retailer-friendly twist. Renren Guang Jie (“Go Shopping”) launched in January 2012, and seems likely to dominate the social sharing space in China.
Several other versions of Pinterest have already sprung up, most notably Huaban. Guang Jie is the first photo sharing site to be tied to an existing social network, however, and Renren can promote the new site to the 31 million users it already has.
Guang Jie is closely linked to Taobao.com, the Chinese internet retailer, and most or all of the images shared on Guang Jie are linked to products sold on Taobao. Renren gathers most of its income from advertising ($19 million out of $34 million total revenues in the third quarter of 2011), and the information gathered from Guang Jie users will be a gold mine for advertisers.
Pinterest has 4.5 million users, mostly female, and draws more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. Renren is the “Facebook of China,” and Guang Jie is likely to be even more powerful in its hands.
U.S. trading in Renren is robust, but investors looking for broader exposure should look at the Global X Social Media Index ETF (SOCL, quote), which devotes 4.56% of its portfolio to Renren.