Alibaba Group: Laiwang is a Social Networking Product and is Currently Under Beta Testing

There’s already quite a lot of buzz in the Chinese media that Alibaba Group is building a social network called Laiwang. There’s a minimal page up at laiwang.com and even an Android app, but both only permit a mysterious sign-in and allow no chance to register.

No one can say for sure what Laiwang is, but a leaked screenshot (below) shows that it looks a little like… uhmm… a social network. There are folks who are speculating that it looks like Google+. But we can’t say for sure until we use and see the product ourselves.

I’ve also reached out to the folks at Alibaba Group who confirmed that Laiwang.com is indeed the company’s creation. The spokeswoman would only reveal:

It is a social-networking product and is currently under beta testing. Other than that, we don’t really have more details to share right now.

The only Laiwang screenshot available beyond the login page.

Now that makes me wonder why Alibaba Group is building a social networking product. Jack Ma and friends are not stupid so it can’t be just another Google+ clone. Perhaps Alibaba Group is looking at some kind of e-commerce 2.0, or social commerce.

But then again, Laiwang is kinda late for the social party with Sina Weibo, Qzone, and Renren having already established themselves in the Chinese social networking market. That said, each of these social platforms is focused on ads and social games, not commerce. The only ‘things’ that are sold are basically virtual credits and goods.

Okay, so no one in China has really built a social commerce platform. And I’m suspecting that Alibaba Group might be (I’m speculating) experimenting on social commerce with Laiwang.com. Alibaba Group is more commerce than social, even with its cloud-based mobile OS, Aliyun.

But if social commerce is 50 percent commerce, and 50 percent social, Alibaba already has half of it in its pocket. It only needs to figure out how to integrate social and commerce as one compelling product (more compelling that Apple’s failure with Ping, which was really just a way to make people buy more digital downloads).

So it makes sense to start Laiwang as a pet project to start learning the social business. Whether Laiwang will be a social plugin for e-commerce sites, a standalone social commerce site, or a mash-up of all other social networks is still a mystery. Again, note that I’m speculating for the fun of discussion. Let us know what you make of this move in the comments below.