You Can Buy a Weibo Clone (For Cheaper Than You’d Think)

Trawling, as I sometimes do, for startups this evening, I stumbled across Godpark. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what was going on; the site is basically an exact clone of Sina Weibo. You don’t have to take my word for it; just take a look at these screenshots:

So OK, big deal, it’s not exactly hard to find clones like this on the Chinese web! But I was a little intrigued when I noticed that images work slightly differently on Godpark than they do on Weibo. I also noticed that Godpark offered integration with Tencent and Sina Weibo, as well as other Chinese social networks. That seemed odd for a copycat product.

It turns out that Godpark is just one implementation of pre-built microblogging solution called JiShiGou. JiShiGou is a for-sale weibo solution that seems to be targeted mostly at corporations. At first I was pretty skeptical about this, but the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense. It’s basically Sina Weibo with a slightly different paint job but — here’s the important bit — it’s hosted on your servers. That could be hugely important for companies that want to leverage microblogging technology in their workflows (god, I hate myself for typing that phrase) but aren’t comfortable with using the “groups” feature on Sina Weibo because private information about their company would have to be stored on Sina’s servers.

So what does it cost to buy your own private weibo clone? It depends on the package. You can get the basic web package for just 10,000 RMB ($1,587), but numerous add-ons are also available, from iPhone/iPad and Android phone and tablet apps ($2,380 for iOS apps and $1,587 for Android apps) to text messaging support ($126 per 10,000 texts). With just a few thousand dollars, it seems, you can buy your own microblogging system, complete with apps, texting support, and even auto-backups, updates, and training if you go for the higher-end packages.

I’m still not sure what Godpark is trying to do, but JiShiGou is an interesting if decidedly uncreative solution to the problem of how corporations can use microblogging technology while controlling the system themselves to make sure their data remains safe. JiShiGou is definitely a Sina Weibo clone, but a clone might be just what some companies are looking for.