Facebook really can not let go of the fat market in China ah

Facebook just rented office in Beijing low-key, its social photo Instagram application has disappeared from this market.

Although it has maintained a low enough profile, Facebook rented offices in the heart of Beijing's CBD since June, arousing curiosity from outside. Its rented Fortune Center office is located in the heart of the East Third Ring Road in Beijing, near the third phase of Guomao, Beijing's most expensive office tower.

Few Internet companies set up their offices here, with most Chinese local companies sitting in the northwest and northeast corners of Beijing. Facebook rented about 800 square meters of office space on the 59th floor of the building, which led to DTZ.

In the commercial rental market, homeowners will reserve the right place for those important customers to facilitate their future growth and expansion. The Fortune Center is currently not planning to rented this layer to other customers, rented 800 square meters of Facebook is the total area of ​​2900 square meters of office only customers.

It appears that the company, which can not access its products in China smoothly, has already started to take action in this market, and its Instagram image social application has disappeared.

Early June, in the mainstream third-party Android market Baidu 91, pea pod search "instagram", it can no longer find its trace. In response, several major Android market platform can not give a reply, "We can not say anything, can not give any comments." A company's public relations director gives a common answer. And a marketer in another small business doing the same business confirmed to First Financial Week that they did take the initiative off the shelf, "for security reasons."

"Instagram will not disappear, we will collaborate with Facebook, develop Instagram, and we'll continually develop new features that will give people a better picture sharing experience." After Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012, the founders Sistermome said so. Sistermrom probably could not think of it, and one day their app, which had more than 200 million users, would "disappear" in the Chinese market.

Accompanied by "disappeared", there are "failure."

Jia 葭 usually two or three days to open a Line, the latest one is on June 11. He plans to add a new friend to it, but he has not searched for a long time. After using the virtual private network, more than 40 messages suddenly appeared. "I just realized that this software can not be used in mainland China ".

Similar to WeChat, Line is an instant messaging software with a large user base. In June 2011, it was released by a Japanese subsidiary of NHN Corporation in South Korea and has a large number of users in Japan and Southeast Asian countries. On April 2, 2014, the company announced that it had exceeded 400 million users. In addition to a large number of ordinary users, many celebrities in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea have used Line as a communication platform to maintain their interaction with fans. Some business companies also see it as an important social tool to connect with consumers.

Jia 葭 was regarded as Line's deep user. He is a section chief editor of Tencent, because the relationship between the work has always been based in Hong Kong, because local friends are using this software, he also rely on the Line to contact with local friends. After returning to work in Beijing, he used WeChat more, but those above Line friends do not everyone use WeChat, and some Japanese friends even have some resistance to the software. In order to contact them, Jia 葭 still use Line Recently, I discovered that I could not use it.

Line officially confirmed the product failure in China. "On the evening of July 1, there was a problem with the connection of Line in China and the other services were also in trouble because of the investigation and we are continuing to work hard to solve it." Line Co., E-mail on the "First Financial Weekly" reply Road.

After the line fails, Jia 葭 originally intended to transfer to other communications software, which found that not only can not use the Line. "There are also more Talkbox users in Hong Kong and several of Google's Instant Messaging softwares," Jia said.

There are several common features in these abrupt software failures: all are social and instant messaging software, all developed by overseas companies with servers outside of China.

Standing on the top floor of Facebook's wealth center in Beijing, the weather is good, looking west to see the central Tiananmen Square, which is seen as a symbol of China's power outside the office is the congestion and busy East Third Ring Road, on behalf of The potential of this market. No internet company does not want to enter this market, but it must meet government requirements.

Facebook has never brought service into China, but has never given up on this market.

After its inability to enter the mainland market in 2009, it set up its office outside Hong Kong, Mainland China, to support advertising sales and developer services in Mainland China. Facebook executives have repeatedly traveled to southwestern China, and finally appeared on their website Chengdu, Sichuan official travel ads. Through its agency, commercials are more likely to appear on Facebook's social platforms.

And Chinese advertisers who want to attract overseas customers also understand Facebook's superiority. According to comScore, an Internet traffic monitoring agency, it is already the site with the most traffic in the world and therefore has great advertising value. In addition, there are thousands of developers in China relying on the Facebook platform, so companies need to set up offices in the region in order to keep in touch with them.

But getting even a little bit of progress in this market is not easy. Earlier, according to Bloomberg, Facebook has not decided whether to hire full-time employees in the office, because if full-time employees are hired, they need to apply for a business license. And people close to Facebook disclosed to the "First Financial Weekly," said they have submitted the necessary documents for the business license for business has been two months, but has not been able to handle properly.

Line to attract users to sell Meng cartoon sticker has been trying to expand its influence in this market. Line in the Android market, the earliest through the 360 ​​application distribution landing, but seeing the same as the number of instant messaging tools WeChat users all the way up, Line and pea pods as the core operator. In addition, it is also advertising in Shanghai Metro and other channels. The cooperation with the Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo T-shirts also won this year in China, which should have been an opportunity to expand its market share.

As of July 14, Line's services in Mainland China are still in an unstable state.

For Internet companies, China will always be a tempting market. According to the data disclosed by China Internet Network Information Center, as of December 2013, the scale of Chinese Internet users reached 618 million with the scale of mobile Internet users reaching 500 million. But it is also a "black swan" frequent market - those unpredictable and can cause the market chain reaction event.

In any country, meeting government rules and requirements is a smart business decision. When searching for Instagram on Apple's App Store, it's still normal to display and download. "We have a rigorous review mechanism for applications and a dedicated team is in charge of such things." Apple's public relations officers briefed First Financial Weekly on such topics as pornography, religious culture and ethnicity.

Those native Android markets, while meeting the requirements, are always under greater regulatory scrutiny. Google's mobile application store Google Play has not been allowed to enter the Chinese market. In the Chinese market, Android apps are mainly released in several mainstream channels such as Baidu 91, Pea Pod, and 360 mobile phone stores. Behind the Apple store behind Apple is a large US-owned company, Android market behind the distribution channel is a number of scattered Chinese companies.

"Information globalization" in the App market, means that the world can download and use the same App, foreign developers can bring applications and services to China, domestic developers can bring applications and services overseas. Chinese Internet companies have never given up going overseas, whether it is Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, or some small developers as well.

But there are not so many unpredictable events in overseas markets. A Chinese domestic game developer told First Financial Weekly that when they entered the global market, they mainly had to localize the language, followed by related user support, and would not be too concerned about anything other than this , Also did not meet this Chinese market "black swan".

For the global Internet companies, once the red card is produced in the Chinese market, it is difficult to re-enter.

In 2010, Google Inc. brokered the Chinese version of the web search service due to content censorship issues with Chinese authorities and turned to Hong Kong domain names and servers to provide simplified Chinese services to mainland users. So far, Google has not returned to this market. According to CNZZ, Google accounted for 1.18% market share in China in March 2014, compared with 58.76% for the first place, and Google once had a market share of over 30 before exiting the market %.

"A lot of things do not go to life after it will be very inconvenient because of your data and contacts above, and in the event of access difficulties will lead to fewer and fewer people above." Chen Xu work in Sina, "First Financial Weekly "said. There is no doubt that this means the loss of users in this market, and users are also in an island of information.

"Those Android users have to be careful to protect their Instagram on the phone from being deleted, otherwise no place will be available again." Chen Xu is Instagram's heavily dependent user.

In his opinion, this software can not find a substitute. He usually records the life with Instagram, uses it to photograph the food when eating, when travels is to share a large number of landscape pictures above. Because often share, in the above know a lot of friends abroad, and these are using any of the domestic picture App can not achieve the use of experience.

In the early days of Instagram, there were several social applications that mimicked Instagram's picture, such as thumbtacks, but none of them succeeded in the end. One important reason for this is that unlike social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, Chinese users are always free to download, install and use the software.

However, perhaps from now on will be very different. "We are free to buy iphone, but it does not mean that we can use an app casually," Jia said.

The Facebook-Acquired Image Social Apps Instagram is one of the largest social networks in the world.