A February article in magazine Fast Company goes into great depth about the birth of Renren and the Chinese social media landscape in general -

"Chinese Internet users are twice as conversational as American users; in other words, they're twice as likely to post to online forums, chat in chat rooms, or publish blogs. And to the joy of advertisers and marketers, social media is twice as likely to influence Chinese buying decisions as American ones, which explains why brands such as BMW, Estée Lauder, and Lay's have flocked to China's social networks." Fast Company

At Caimeiju, we utilize Renren among many other Chinese social media site to promote luxury real estate for our Western clients. For a visual of what a Renren profile looks like, we can taken a screenshot of our Caimeiju Renren page. Look a little familiar to Facebook?