人人借Facebook上市东风强势反弹

    Facebook的IPO计划炒得沸沸扬扬。问及这一切对他一手创立和经营的、所谓“中国的Facebook”——人人公司意味着什么时，陈一舟低声笑了，因为这个问题要远比看上去复杂得多。

    Facebook确认计划于今年晚些时候上市之前一周，人人（Renren）的股票（在纽约证交所交易的美国存托凭证）价格涨幅超过60%。这让陈一舟倍感轻松，因为自从去年5月人人上市初始即创下历史高点24美元以来，该股总体处于加速下跌通道，上个月更是创下了52周低点的3.20美元。

    股价下跌是多重负面因素叠加的结果。不可否认，当初人人进行IPO时，它自己的宣传同样有点过火。当你把“中国”和“Facebook”这两个词放在同一个句子中，用“的”连接起来，至少会吸引一部分投资者不问青红皂白便立即买入。毕竟，中国拥有全球数量最多的互联网用户，国内社交网站仍处于发展初期。根据美国互联网流量监测机构comScore Media Metrix的数据，中国只有38.4%的互联网用户使用社交网站，低于全球的69.8%和美国的81.4%。显然，中国社交网站存在巨大的发展空间。

    但去年，中国概念小盘股在美国股市遭遇重创，主要是因为投资者越来越担心这些公司公开财务披露的可靠性。就在人人IPO之前几天，备受空头推崇的民间调查机构Citron Research发布了一份报告，质疑一家公司公布的数据，而该公司的首席财务官德雷克•帕拉舒克同时也是人人公司董事会的成员，担任人人公司审计委员会主席。此事一出，帕拉舒克很快宣布辞去人人公司董事会职务，此举得到了人人公司几位风险投资者的欢迎。

    尽管如此，做空者日益关注中国概念小盘股，基本上导致了相关股票的全面暴跌，不管它们的数据是否应当受到质疑。它们被不加区分地卖空，人人公司也未能幸免。

    不过，除了投资者普遍对中国概念股存疑外，导致这些股价暴跌还有别的原因。其中当然也少不了对中国互联网行业，尤其是社交网站的普遍误解。上周，42岁的陈一舟试图借Facebook的IPO效应、进一步说明他的公司和业务情况。陈一舟和首席财务官黄辉强调，外部人士首先要了解一点，即便众所周知Facebook在中国被禁，这绝不意味着“中国的Facebook”没有竞争。

    事实上，情况正好相反。中国的社交网站市场的分化远比美国严重，大量互联网公司都在进入这个领域，虽然它们也许并未自诩为“克隆版Facebook”。

    比如新浪(Sina)，它拥有中国最知名的、号称“中国版Twitter”的微博网站。还有以即时通讯服务QQ著称的腾讯（Tencent）。腾讯还经营着QQ空间（Qzone）。虽然分析人士质疑腾讯所谓的“活跃”，但这家公司仍然自称拥有4.81亿“活跃用户”。去年秋季，腾讯对另一家社交网站开心网（Kaixin001）注资（投资数额未予披露），希望藉此创建一个所谓的“实名”网站（即和人人一样，要求用户实名注册，不能用虚拟网名）。开心网用户和人人一样，大多是居住在城市中受过良好教育的年轻用户。因此，陈一舟说中国的社交网站市场比“美国竞争更激烈”，所言不虚。

    FORTUNE -- Joseph Chen chuckles a bit when asked what the hype surrounding Facebook's announced plans for an initial public offering means for the company he founded and runs, Renren Inc., the so called "Facebook of China." He chuckles because the question is more complicated than it seems.

    In the week prior to Facebook's confirmation that it was, in fact, going public later this year, Renren's (RENN) stock (its ADRs trade on the NYSE) leapt by more than 60%. That had to come as a relief to Chen, because ever since it went public last May -- when the stock hit a peak of $24 just after it's IPO -- it s been on an escalator ride straight down, hitting a 52-week low of just $3.20 last month.

    The stock price plunge was the result of a perfect storm. There was, let's face it, a bit of hype surrounding its own IPO. When you put the words "Facebook" and "China" together in the same sentence, separated by the word "of," at least a percentage of the investing universe is going to buy first and ask questions later. After all, there are more Internet users in China than anywhere else, and social networking sites are still in their infancy. According to comScore Media Metrix, 38.4% of Internet users in China engage in social networking, compared to 69.8% globally and 81.4% in the United States. Clearly, there is huge room for growth here.

    But small cap China stocks were savaged in U.S. markets last year, mainly because of growing concerns about the credibility of their public financial disclosures. Just days before Renren's IPO, Citron Research, whose work is widely read by short sellers, issued a report questioning the numbers of a company whose CFO was also serving on Renren's board as head of its audit committee. The executive, Derek Palaschuk, resigned from Renren's board, a move that several venture capitalist Renren investors welcomed.

    Nonetheless, the intensifying focus among short sellers on Chinese small caps has basically led to a rout in the market for them, whether their numbers are legitimately questionable or not. They've been beaten down indiscriminately, Renren among them.

    Still, there was more to the beat-down than just widespread nervousness over Chinese stocks. A misunderstanding of the Chinese Internet space in general, and social networking in particular, certainly played a part. Chen, 42, used the Facebook moment last week to try to explain his company and his business. The first thing outsiders need to understand, he and CFO Hui Huang stress, is that even though Facebook is famously blocked in China by the government, that doesn't mean the "Facebook of China" lacks competition.

    It's quite the opposite, in fact. China's market for social networking sites is much more fragmented than it is in the United States, with any number of companies not normally identified as "Facebook clones" trying to ease into the space.

    Sina.com (SINA), which runs China's pre-eminent micro-blogging site -- typically described as the "Twitter of China" -- is there. So too is Tencent, best known for its instant messaging service, QQ. It already operates a site called Qzone, which, it claims, has 481 million "active users" -- though analysts question what Tencent's definition of "active" is. Last fall, the company invested an undisclosed sum in another social networking site called Kaixin001, with which it intends to create a so-called "real name" site (which means, as with Renren, users are required to register using their real names, not some fake Internet handle). Kaixin's users, like Renren's, tend to be young, urban, and well educated. So when Chen says China's social networking market is "more competitive than the U.S.," he's right.