Facebook bump into the trip to China

Recently, Facebook has reportedly rented a property in downtown Beijing and plans to open an office in China. Beiqinggao Bao said that from Fortune Financial Center developer Hong Kong International Department came news, Facebook has signed a financial center, the lease period or 3 years.

However, Fortune Financial officials did not respond to this, and Facebook headquarters spokesman Debbie Foster also declined to comment on whether the company opened an office in Beijing.

Facebook plans to enter the Chinese market for a long time. In fact, as early as the end of 2007, Facebook began to carry out business in China layout, which had the Chinese name "American Feshibo Burke" in China to apply for registration of more than 60 different trademarks. In the same year, Facebook also registered. Cn domain name, once came out Facebook news that China will be in China. Li Ka-shing subsequently confirmed in March 2008 that it had invested more than $ 100 million in Facebook, while in June of the same year the SNS website also introduced a simplified Chinese version. But then three years, due to various reasons, Facebook's plan to enter China was stranded.

According to the author observation, often rumors outflow, Facebook is always irreversible, the last thing can not be done. In my opinion, the Facebook rumors into China is still only a rumor, even if Facebook really into China, may also be "non-essential."

The policy is not clear

Facebook will face the greatest stumbling block into China's mainland policy uncertainty, which will be its biggest obstacle, including compliance with the Chinese government rules and regulations, to ensure that users and websites transparent, and protect the user data security.

It is not so easy to come in. There are many rounds of negotiations with the Mainland. Of course it is not so easy. Even after entering China? Google may be a vivid portrayal of Facebook, of course, unless Zach Berger is willing to unconditionally meet all the requirements of the mainland.

After his visit to China from the end of 2010, Zuckerberg visited China many times and visited Baidu CEO Li Yanhong, China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou, Sina CEO Cao Guowei and Alibaba Chairman Ma Yun, attempting to sign a cooperation agreement with the above Chinese companies. Joint ventures ended in failure. Domestic partners can not be identified, the license is difficult to implement, the competent authorities have been no signs of easing. February 2, 2012 Facebook submitted an IPO application to write that there are still four countries in the world can not access Facebook, one of which is China.

Facebook is also facing policy barriers in other countries, not just in China. Earlier, Facebook in India suffered a high court warning, because Facebook site has "inappropriate content." According to a Reuters report, a court judge warned certain websites that they would face restricted access to India. In Turkey, in March of this year, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan even threatened to close the Facebook website in Turkey to stop his political opponents from publishing audio files on both websites. Erdogan said the audio file "faked" his suspicion Corrupt facts.

So far in India and Turkey, Facebook's policy barriers to entering the mainland market can be imagined. Zuckerberg may know the heart, as long as there is a policy to allow mainland China to relax, to send Facebook to China.

Culture acclimatized

As the saying goes: "It is difficult for foreign monks to read the scriptures," and the localization change has become the key factor for the success of foreign enterprises in China. Facebook in the United States is undoubtedly very successful, but not necessarily in China. Huainan orange, Huaibei is trifoliate orange, the soil of different survival, the application of Sino-US Internet there are relatively large differences, it is impossible to "universal".

As we all know, foreign, including Yahoo, Google, MSN, including Internet giants have crashed into China. And the success of social networking sites is not driven by technology, but driven by users. Chinese users are accustomed to different Internet users in Europe and the United States. Internet companies that succeed in Europe and the United States sometimes find it hard to make a difference. Therefore, even if Facebook enters China, it will not have much impact on China's current Internet ecosystem.

In 1999, Yahoo entered China's portal market and China's portal Gangster fierce competition, August 2005, Yahoo China was Alibaba acquisition, the past 6 years, China's portal has been Tencent, Sina, Sohu and NetEase ranked ; 2005, MSN officially joined the Chinese market, but was hit by the bleak QQ quit; Google came to China, the results are not satisfactory, when facing the competition with Baidu, the failure, the market share is a drop again drop.

In 2004, after MySpace Juyou.com, which is similar to Facebook, entered the SNS market in China, it also faced many powerful competitors such as Intranet, Kaixinwang, QQ alumnus and so on. Today's Juyou network has long been Tencent friends, Renren and other Chinese SNS buried underground, Juyou network out of China's mainstream SNS status.

Why foreign products can not get rid of "bad luck" when they enter China? The fundamental reason is that cultural differences. After entering these foreign products in China, they did not really understand the Chinese culture and understand the cultural characteristics and psychological needs of Chinese users. Just a simple interface translated from English into Chinese, the result is of course a good idea. In addition to the product and the user, there are cultural differences. There are also problems caused by cultural differences within enterprises. After some foreign Internet companies join the Chinese market, they certainly recruit troops and horses in China. However, because they do not understand the human nature of the Chinese and copy the foreign management models to China, such internal management does not Coordination is also an important reason for acclimatization.

In fact, as early as 2008, Facebook developed the Simplified Chinese version, but its business in China has not been too warm as most users are professional managers in Europe and the United States who have neither a clear understanding of the laws of the Chinese market nor the communication with the headquarters. Fire, no effect.

Similar products gradually decline

Facebook into China can only say that "day lily are cold," the domestic imitation of similar products Facebook Renren, happy network have half-dead. Once Renren, happy network relying on popular social games prevailed for a while, but failed to find new business support in time, and now the user has been depleted. Renren, happy network in the various services also failed to cover the mainstream needs of users, user awareness is not high. Coupled with the impact of WeChat, Weibo and other social products, in fact, has been sentenced to "life imprisonment."

Renren went to the United States listed at the beginning, known as China's Facebook. At the time, investors valued everyone more than twice the price Facebook traded in the private market. However, since the listing in 2011, everyone's share price has dropped four-fifths. SNS products currently in China in addition to QQ space live better, others have died. Facebook at this time to enter the Chinese market can only be said to catch a late episode.

At present, the Internet has also entered the Web2.0 era from the Web1.0 era. SNS websites can essentially be regarded as Web1.0 products. Facebook's biggest problem is that people's social behavior has been transformed from the traditional PC Internet to the mobile platform, WhatsApp, Snapchat, WeChat, etc. are all designed for mobile platforms, so these products show the vitality far greater than Facebook. According to statistics, Twitter popularity in the United States among young people was 26%, while Facebook and its recently acquired photo-sharing platform Instagram's popularity rate was 23%. This shows that in fact, Facebook is already in recession into the country, this time into China, it is outdated. Facebook into the Chinese market, really want to "not dead" it?

to sum up

Facebook has too many hurdles to enter China, and even lucky to crack the primary problem of policy, accompanied by cultural acclimatization, similar products and other social media competition. Facebook in China how long to survive is unknown, into China there is too much to determine and uncertain factors.

China has always been the coveted ideal of many U.S. companies and has always been the hardest-hit market for U.S. Internet companies. Even if Facebook enters China, it seems that its Chinese pronunciation "is untenable." Facebook can successfully enter China, after entering China can escape the "unforgiving" doom, we can only wait and see.