Lending an online hand

When Mark Zuckerburg, founder of social networking website Facebook, made headlines last week for his plans to launch the biggest-ever initial public offering, a Beijing university student was quietly going about his business to follow in the young American entrepreneur's successful footsteps. Shen Lei, a 23-year-old studying his PhD in Precision Instruments and Mechanism at Tsinghua University, is trying to do what Zuckerburg did eight years ago at Harvard by fine-tuning his own social networking website designed for students.

Help me if you can

Shen launched his website Shixiong Bangbangmang (aka Sxbbm.com) last year on November 11, regarded in China as Singles' Day. The name, though not as catchy as Facebook, translates as "senior boys, do me a favor." It differs from rival Chinese social networking websites including Renren and Kaixin, which are modeled on Facebook in that Sxbbm.com provides an "online to offline community," fostering interactions based on locations.

For example if a female student needs a favor, they simply post their request and location on campus, making it quicker and easier for a male student nearby to lend a hand. As the website's name suggests, male students can only respond to requests for favors, and aren't permitted to ask for help.

The website, which gained more than 1,000 hits on its launch day, has grown in popularity among students not only at Tsinghua but also at other universities in the college-crowded Haidian district.

"I guess more than 70 percent of Tsinghua students have learned about the website," said Dai Ying, 25, a postgraduate student majoring in communications at the university.

At the end of last semester, Dai posted several requests on the website, including asking for a restaurant coupon, assistance in installing software on her computer and selling a second-hand bicycle.

Other tasks posted on the website come from students seeking someone to study English with, reserving seats at the library, buying train tickets or lending examination papers from past years. Some female students even look for love, posting the desired traits of their ideal boyfriend.

"I know a girl surnamed Li from another university who has started a relationship with a male student she met through the website," Dai said.

Chivalry in the online age

However, not everyone is a fan of Sxbbm.com, with some questioning the motives of the online good Samaritans or even male students' willingness to help a damsel in distress. A student surnamed Liu majoring in physics said the notion of guys helping girls without expecting anything in return is outdated. "Most guys born after 1985 prefer playing computer games in their dorms, rather than helping their junior sisters," Liu explained.

Shen Lei and his team of co-creators keenly sought feedback from users of the website to find out what people wanted to see improved. In a push to encourage more male users, the website adapted its regulations to state any favor to females should be rewarded with thanks in the form of a small gift or invitation for coffee, dinner or a film. This was to encourage friendship and romance to blossom.

"By Spring Festival, there were about 290 favors requested by females, of which more than 100 of had been responded to and solved," Shen said.

"Stories involving senior guys and junior girls are an eternal topic of interest on campus," Shen laughed. "Girls may be too shy to take the initiative to make friends with boys. On the other hand, if senior guys come on too strong when they offer help, girls might feel weird and suspicious about their motives."

Pursuit of profits

Shen, the self-declared CEO of Sxbbm.com, pitched the idea of the website to his fellow students as he believed a task-driven social networking tool would break new ground in China's online world. Imitating the origins of Facebook, Sxbbm.com initially aimed to exclusively serve the needs of the university's students. "We pioneered our website at Tsinghua as most of our team members are students here, which makes it easy for us to use resources," Shen explained. At present, Shen said he "plans to copy" the career path of Zuckerburg, though it could be some time until Sxbbm.com launches an IPO. "I decided to suspend my studies and devote all my energy into the website," he said. Currently self-funded, the website is run by nine people including Shen, though there are plans to expand and raise capital.

Currently closed, the website will reopen at the start of the new semester and cover four more universities, namely Peking University, Beijing Normal University and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

While its expansion to other universities has been relatively easy, the real challenge looms in building capital. Currently, the website doesn't feature any advertising however Shen hasn't ruled out introducing it in a way that "doesn't ruin Web users' experience."

"It may be easy for other online networking sites such as Weibo and Renren to copy this idea," noted Li Li, vice president of Beijing-based social game developer ELEX. "The commercial viability [of Sxbbm.com] isn't clear. It specializes in providing services to university students, so it's impossible to charge fees. Compared with other popular social networking websites such Jiayuan.com which charges on its users, Sxbbm.com faces a much tougher challenge."

"The website might evolve into a free social networking site like Renren, however, breaking the monopoly Renren has in the market will be difficult," Li noted.