I previously have posted a post entitled, “MySpace Set to Launch in China,” and today they have officially released its public beta. MySpace China recognized the potential of China and planned nearly a year in order to launched this China version. It is not a Chinese version but should be claimed as an ideally China version. They owned the MySpace dot cn domain and proactively promote their Chinese slogan “友你 友我”, i.e. friend you, friend me. Using the dot cn domain does not giving up some of the competitive advantage MySpace achieved over the years, MySpace China has indeed integrated with MySpace International and the members registered in this MySpace China will allowed to “friend you and friend me” with their friends regardless where they registered their MySpace profiles in. Moreover, the CEO of MySpace China is Luo Chuan 罗川 and he has assumed the key man position at this newly found venture after he left Microsoft MSN in December last year.

As I visited the Myspace China’s landing page, there are well-designed twelve (12) channels such as home page, browse users, search, invite, mailbox, blog, favorite bookmark, forum, groups, events, schools, and music. If you well familiar with the features offered by MySpace US, you’ll notice that there are not much differences between the features offered by these two entities. MySpace China has the extra “schools” category whereby the Chinese people could find their friends through the schools that established in China. Meanwhile, MySpace US’s features offered are far more complete, an user can even reach film, videos, comedy and classifieds from the landing page there.

MySpace China positioned itself as a “locally owned, operated and managed company.” However, after I thoroughly observed the business processes and design matters of MySpace China, it should be a Chinese “clone” version of MySpace International. It’s still a long way for them to crystallize their localization strategy to reality.