As much as I hate to be a smart-ass, but I’ve been highly skeptical already last year about Facebook’s acclaimed attempt to conquer the Mainland’s social network market. Just like I predicted, FB’s efforts are folding, as the Wall Street Journal reports–with active users dwindling, from one million… to around 14,000:

“Many Facebook users found proxies and other methods of connecting to Facebook, and many others stood by, hoping the Web site would be unblocked quickly (no luck yet). Meanwhile, according to Inside Facebook, the Web site’s latest statistics showed only 14,000 active users in China as of the beginning of October, down from a million in July….
It’s no secret among people in the Internet business in China that Facebook was interested in the world’s largest Internet user population. But apparently — according to various parties that met with a delegation of Facebook officials some time in the last few years — they came, they saw, and they left Chinese social networking Web sites like Renren.com…”

Renren actually is the former Xiaonei, who started as blatant FB carbon copy, ending up with more venture capital under their belts than the original. The Renren domain was, by the way, home to an early Chinese socnet, about 10 years ago, as VirtualReview has it. This rebranding seems to indicate Xiaonei’s future plans: while Xiaonei literal meaning is “inside school”, Renren is Pinyin for “everyone”.

The Chinese socnet market is continuously dominated by Xiaonei/Renren, Kaixin001 and 51.com.