Jeremy GoldkornThe popular social network Facebook, claiming 39 million users, has been making moves that suggests it is ready to enter the Chinese market very soon, writes Times Online. That is going to be an interesting move where so many of its online predecessors have failed, for almost every reason you can imagine.
Not surprisingly, the article also features two of the speakers at Chinabiz Speakers, Kaiser Kuo of Ogilyvy and Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei. Jeremy Goldkorn:
"I don't think they'll fare well - there's not a single foreign internet company that has managed to dominate its sector," said Jeremy Goldkorn, editor of danwei.org, an English-language site that tracks the Chinese media industry. Mr Golkorn cited the example of Google, which still trails Baidu.com, the dominant Chinese search engine, despite launching its Chinese language site in 2006, and Yahoo! China, which is not as popular as local portals such as Sina.com and 163.net.
"It's also a cultural thing," Mr Goldkorn said. "Facebook is based on people using their real names and being honest, whereas the Chinese like the ability to be anonymous. E-mail addresses will rarely include a person's name, and on bulletin boards a lot of the posts are anonymous, so I'm not sure the Facebook model will work."
3 comments:
Not quite sure I agree with Goldkorn, but he seems to be an expert. This is besides the point, but he bears a striking resemblance to Josh Groban, no?
hi
i think you are missing
360Quan.com 2nd Largest Social Network in china Owned by Koolanoo Group
I have to agree. People in China have massive security concern for the ir safety and the consequences of leaving their information online, they will certainly have trust issues with a foreign service such as facebook who has had privacy issues flagged up
Post a Comment