Comments for Facebook to Crowdsource Chinese Translation - China Launch Imminent?

Facebook to Crowdsource Chinese Translation - China Launch Imminent?

2008-03-31T08:35:31Z

Following on from our Q&A with Benjamin Joffe about how Facebook compares to top Asian social networks, Kaiser Kuo from Ogilvy China Digital Watch reported today that Facebook users in China "received a message on their main pages this morning asking them to help out with the translation of the site into simplified Chinese". Kaiser calls this a "a very Web 2.0 approach to the arduous task of translating the site." This is the latest example of speculation that Facebook is about to enter the booming China market.

]]> Also fueling rumors that Facebook will launch in China is a report from Marketwatch stating that Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing has increased his personal investment in Facebook to more than US$100 million. Sounds impressive, however his initial investment had been $60 million for just 0.4% of the company - remember it has a $15 billion valuation. So he probably hasn't even cracked 1%.

Benjamin told us in our interview that currently "Facebook has almost no presence in the three markets we cover: China, South Korea and Japan." In China, QQ is the dominant player with 300 million active accounts. MySpace has a presence in China, but according to the Forbes report linked above, it "hasn't been able to steal significant market share from any of the top Chinese social-networking sites since it launched in China a year ago."

We reported in November that Facebook made an $85 million offer to purchase Zhanzuo.com, a leading Chinese social network with 7 million users. Nothing appeared to come of that though.

Forbes noted that Facebook currently has 247,000 members from China. If you browse Facebook, you'll come across Chinese language users in Facebook. So this move by Facebook to crowdsource the site translation would be one step in formalizing that user base. But there's still the matter of monetizing and doing business development in China, which would require an office and staff there.

Can Facebook Be Competitive in China?

It would be fascinating to see Facebook try to enter China, a Web market that is very tough to succeed in for Western companies. This was one of the main themes to come out of the recent Media 08 conference in Sydney, at which I met both Benjamin and Kaiser. Indeed a presentation at Media 08 by Jonathan Haagen, an analyst from the Economist Intelligence Unit, was entitled Why Western Tech Companies Fail in China(!) I've embedded it below, because it's well worth Facebook's execs reading it ;-)

Comment from Yaron on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T09:42:44Z

We developed OneHourTranslation.com, which is a translation service based on crowdsourcing.

Comment from mingming on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T10:02:14Z

good

Comment from Kaiser Kuo on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T11:45:23Z

Hi Richard, thanks for the shout-out. I've done a bunch of rumor-busting on Facebook-to-enter-China over on the Ogilvy China Digital Watch, which you can find most easily if you look at the "China Entry" category there.

It bears noting that we ought to consider how much personal information is potentially exposed to Chinese authorities on Facebook or similar social networks. Should they place info under Chinese legal jurisdiction and misstep, there's every likelihood they'll face recrimination and moral opprobrium in the U.S. or other liberal Internet markets that would make what Yahoo has with the Shi Tao case look like a walk in the park. Any SNS should think twice before deciding to host in China.

Comment from Allen on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T13:09:03Z

having a chinese version and launching in china are two different matters. facebook is not launching here in china even if they support chinese.

Comment from Joe on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T15:11:20Z

Yaron, OneHourTranslation.com is a really interesting concept of crowd sourcing. cheers

Comment from The Masked Millionaire on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T16:05:38Z

The have to go to China. That country has the largest potential for growth. Not doing so would make no sense.

The Masked Millionaire
www.TheMaskedMillionaire.com

Comment from john on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T16:50:43Z

While reading this article, and I was struck that it probably was relevant to a social networking site, HumanBook, which has over 250 million profiles of people, including you, your friends, classmates and relatives.
The HumanBook is a mutually managed people directory. People list their own real-life connections, and other connections they have awareness of, to create a lifelong network. The network houses the connections, and then the collaboratively updated address book nurtures them, assuring that they need never be lost. HumanBook is the tool that will allow you to cherish and sustain all of the connections of your whole life. So if you're interested, go to http://www.HumanBook.com and find your profile today!

Comment from 113.com on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T17:17:41Z

Wise move, best wishes to facebook!

Comment from Angus Lau on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T17:26:30Z

There may be 248,000 users in the China network, but are there figures to show how many of them are actually local Chinese users? From just looking through it, there appears to be an even share of foreigners and locals in that network, if not more foreigners.

With the information you can find in Facebook in the form of groups and applications, to name a few related to current events, Free Tibet groups, China/Taiwan, Falun Gong, etc., you know the government will be on top of that. Next thing you know, they'll block it just like they do with YouTube, Flickr and others.

As Kaiser already noted, there's a hurdle and it's not easy getting in China, on top of the politics, you have to deal with local competition.

Comment from jilm on 2008-03-31

2008-03-31T17:41:04Z

Translation to Czech started as well so I think it is a worldwide initiative.