Chinese social networks aren’t exactly averse to copying their Western counterparts, but Sina’s Path clone is taking it to a whole new level.
The private social network, called MeYou (which translates as “close friends”) sticks so faithfully to Path’s iOS app design that it would be indistinguishable if it weren’t for the Chinese characters.
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According to TechNode, the app integrates pretty closely with the company’s immensely popular microblogging service Sina Weibo.
People can, for instance, log in with their Weibo accounts. Should they choose to do so, all their Weibo connections will be transferred to the app. Technode does catuion however that you’ll need to add them one by one again as “close friends” in Meyou because “all these connections are open on Sina Weibo for its one-way follow mechanism”. They can also message fellow Weibo users from the app just as they can with the native Sina Weibo app.
Path has never really been forthcoming about exactly how popular it is, but The Next Web reports that, when pressed, executives from the company admitted that Asia was its biggest growth market outside the US.
Although it’s unclear how many of Sina Weibo’s 300-million users are active, it still has enough of a base for Meyou to potentially take off in a really big way.
