"In Soviet Russia, Government Pokes You!"; Facebook Looks to Make Waves in Siberia
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Facebook, madly popular in the U.S. and other countries with over 500 million users, still has room to expand their presence to nations that are not so hot on poking each other to grab attention.
Countries like Japan, where Facebook isn't even in the top three for page views, Brazil and China are still areas of growth for the social medial juggernaut.
One country that has peaked CEO Mark Zuckerburg's attention the most, however, is Russia. Facebook launched their site there in April 2010, and has seen a spike in growth from January to August of 376%, to 4.5 million users according to data from comScore (Nasdaq: SCOR).
Being ranked number five, however, means that there is room for more growth. Facebook has already cut deals with wireless carriers Beeline and OAO Mobile TeleSystems which allow users to access the site from their mobile devices. They are also allowing users to vote on items that might be difficult to translate, such as the infamous 'poke' feature, thereby coming up with a better, more user-friendly word.
Russia is currently flooded with social networking sites, many that copy features from Facebook, News Corp.'s (Nasdaq: NWSA) MySpace, My Classmates, and others. According to data from comScore, users spend an average of 9.8 hours per month on social networking sites, which may not sound like much, but is actually double the world average.
The country is a hotbed for social networking sites based on a few factors: a good six-months of winter, lack of infrastructure to make travel from city to city easy, and personal freedom that is lacking in political Russia is finding a place on the much less-restricted Internet.
Russia's social networking leader is VKontakte, which boasts 28 million users currently. However, they have been plagued by lawsuits recently alleging that they post pirated copies of music, film, and other content on their site. Facebook has said that they will allow nothing on the site that "violates their terms of agreement."
Facebook may also find an easier time expanding based on the demographics of their users, which, according to Bloomberg, are "the wealthier, well-traveled, cosmopolitan variety, have foreign friends and tend to live in Moscow and St. Petersburg." Bloomberg notes when Facebook hosted its first developers' conference in Russia, at an up-and-coming art complex in Moscow, the draw of hundreds included "some prominent Russian Internet investors and software developers hoping to transform their Facebook apps into riches."
With Russia seemingly paradoxical to China in that China allows much more social freedoms and more restricted Internet content, Facebook believes that success in Russia may be a gateway to the larger, more populous country, which Bloomberg lovingly notes has many more 'Netizens."
Countries like Japan, where Facebook isn't even in the top three for page views, Brazil and China are still areas of growth for the social medial juggernaut.
One country that has peaked CEO Mark Zuckerburg's attention the most, however, is Russia. Facebook launched their site there in April 2010, and has seen a spike in growth from January to August of 376%, to 4.5 million users according to data from comScore (Nasdaq: SCOR).
Being ranked number five, however, means that there is room for more growth. Facebook has already cut deals with wireless carriers Beeline and OAO Mobile TeleSystems which allow users to access the site from their mobile devices. They are also allowing users to vote on items that might be difficult to translate, such as the infamous 'poke' feature, thereby coming up with a better, more user-friendly word.
Russia is currently flooded with social networking sites, many that copy features from Facebook, News Corp.'s (Nasdaq: NWSA) MySpace, My Classmates, and others. According to data from comScore, users spend an average of 9.8 hours per month on social networking sites, which may not sound like much, but is actually double the world average.
The country is a hotbed for social networking sites based on a few factors: a good six-months of winter, lack of infrastructure to make travel from city to city easy, and personal freedom that is lacking in political Russia is finding a place on the much less-restricted Internet.
Russia's social networking leader is VKontakte, which boasts 28 million users currently. However, they have been plagued by lawsuits recently alleging that they post pirated copies of music, film, and other content on their site. Facebook has said that they will allow nothing on the site that "violates their terms of agreement."
Facebook may also find an easier time expanding based on the demographics of their users, which, according to Bloomberg, are "the wealthier, well-traveled, cosmopolitan variety, have foreign friends and tend to live in Moscow and St. Petersburg." Bloomberg notes when Facebook hosted its first developers' conference in Russia, at an up-and-coming art complex in Moscow, the draw of hundreds included "some prominent Russian Internet investors and software developers hoping to transform their Facebook apps into riches."
With Russia seemingly paradoxical to China in that China allows much more social freedoms and more restricted Internet content, Facebook believes that success in Russia may be a gateway to the larger, more populous country, which Bloomberg lovingly notes has many more 'Netizens."
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