If you've been following along as I meander through China's social marketing landscape, you'll likely discover a familiar trend. Yes, dear friends, today we'll be discussing another China social media clone - this time of the wildly popular Twitter micro-blogging sensation.

Twitter, meet your long lost Chinese twin.

The top sites successfully copying Twitter are 1. Taotao.com, 2. Fanfou.com, 3. Jiwai.de and newcomer 4. Digu.com. What's most interesting to note is each site's very different strategy on their quest to capture the micro-blogging market.

.... good luck Digu.com!

Taotao's ridiculous lead is even more interesting when we compare starting dates... Taotao began in Aug 2008, 2 months after Fanfou (the red line).

Those of us not put to sleep by looking at graphs will quickly ask: "but how does Taotao average 1000% more traffic than Fanfou if they started around the same time?" The magic of leveraging comes into play; Taotao partnered with QQ (China's MSN) and using their huge unmatched user database grew their membership, and thus traffic stats, quickly into the stratosphere, while Jiwai, Fanfou and newcomer Digu waddle around with us mere mortals here on this dusty Earth.

In fact Taotao's strategy allowed it to trump Twitter in China, though this isn't so surprising as Twitter doesn't have a Chinese interface:

But how does Taotao compare to twitter on a worldwide stage?

The blue line is Twitter, the discolored smudge on the bottom of the graph is Taotao and Fanfou...

So lets take a deeper look:

Taotao's design is pretty much the same as Twitter, with one subtle but overwhelming powerful addition: the ability to sign in with your QQ account. This, hands down is why Taotao has experienced success, and how it became the higher smudge on the above Alexa graph, and beat Twitter in China on the more impressive Chinarank.org.cn graph a bit farther above.

Taotao's interface.

Fanfou's interface; Twitter similarities? Embarrassingly shameless.

Digu's interface... unlike Fanfou, at least they changed the colors.

Interface-wise, all Twitter copies are exactly that: copies of Twitter. Taotao's micro-blogging pages follow the exact same format as Twitter, as do Fanfou and Digu.com.

The point of difference then not in design, but in marketing strategy. As discussed, Taotao used QQ, Fafou, went for a straight copy of twitter; Jiwai on the other hand went with more involved functions, while Digu put more emphasis on quality of members, enlisting many notable celebrities use its service, in addition to creating a "nexus" feature, allowing members to update all their micro blogging sites from a central Digu control panel.

This strategy seems to be best; Taotao's success is based on using QQ, an already established network; Digu's strategy is to allow updating across all platforms from Digu's interface which also leverages established networks; ie: instead of signing up for yet another site, users are in fact simplifying communications across the board.

This explains how the very new site is competing and grabbing market share despite its comparatively young age; can it sustain this growth in the face of huge competition? My opinion is that the celebrity angle will dissipate in its own superficiality soon enough, leaving only the "nexus" function.  Whether or not that benefit is enough to sustain digu waits to be seen; I'm guessing taking a que from Taotao and leveraging of the QQ network, along with its "nexus" function, will boost Digu to a more competitive level.

This seems to hint that the next big thing really isn't another social network, but some tool that allows you to update every social network out there from one central user interface. Whoever develops this tool will be a step ahead of the trend, effectively creating the hub of the social network wheel.

I guess it all boils down to the old sales adage: The more value you provide, then more you'll sell. In the case of China's micro-blogging trend, networks provide value by building on other networks, the future is simplifying and consolidating communications.