I MISS YOU: Hong Jianhao, a student in Zhuji, Zhejiang Province, has a video chat with his parents in Serbia on September 21, one day before China's traditional Mid-Autumn Festival this year (LUO SHANXIN)

In fact, the virtual social communication has already started to affect real life. The virtual goods, such as small ornaments with creative designs, on Kaixin001.com have become hot commodities on Taobao.com, the largest online trading platform in China. Inspired by the idea of virtual gardens, some urban people have even rented fields in the nearby countryside to plant vegetables.

But why are social networking sites so popular? Liu suggested that people had a need to relieve their pressures and communicate with others. This was not easy in the real world. But once they get on Kaixin001.com, they enter a virtual space, where everything is so convenient. It helps them ease pressure and increase communication. In the meantime, it also helps them become closer with their friends.

Another charm of social networking sites lies in its combination of the real social circle and the virtual network. "In real life, we normally behave respectfully to our boss, but on Kaixin001.com, we can steal vegetables from our boss' garden and joke with him. This is great!" said a user of Kaixin001.com.

This feeling of equality brought by a virtual identity bears a more profound significance, Yang said.

In addition to the entertaining function, social networking sites bear great potential as useful tools and have huge market value.

"Social networking sites are a value chain combining economy and social life. In other words, they help to achieve economic profit through the construction of social relations," said Yang.

To be specific, he said, when you log onto a social networking site, if you buy a house in the virtual world, you will have to decorate it. Then you need to think about what brand of decoration materials and what brand of household appliances you will choose. The whole process of establishing your social life in the virtual world is a process of choosing goods with real-life brand names and of asking your friends for suggestions. Through these acts, a real value chain is formed.

Take Kaixin001.com for example. Its registered users are mainly white-collar workers in cities aged 20-35. This is a group with great advertising value. Just two months after the website was launched, numerous companies said they would be interested in placing advertisements in the game. Now there are a large number of companies on its advertising list. Word-of-mouth and product placement advertisements are the two main types in its games.

Queries

Not surprisingly, amid the rapid development of social networking sites, they have received more than just praise.

Getting to sleep late after waiting to steal vegetables; planting peaches at the office before starting work …. Such phenomena have aroused voices of criticism. Some companies use clear regulations to forbid employees from using a social networking site.

Faced with these negative responses, Kaixin001.com announced it would reduce the proportion of games and increase the content relevant to real life. Meanwhile, it said it would speed up the development toward e-commerce.

In addition, social networking sites also face other challenges, such as how to prevent the games from becoming vulgar, how to increase innovation, how to ensure the information security of the real-name registration, and how to find an effective and sustainable profit model, Yang said.