2008年6月23日，Facebook中文版正式发布，不久之后由于中国西藏动乱问题，Facebook社交网站被暂时屏蔽。此后又由于新疆的民族问题，Facebook社交网站最终被完全屏蔽。

事实上，包括Facebook在内，基本上所有外国大型网络公司在中国市场的发展都并不如意，如Facebook，Twitter，Toutube和易趣等。他们的失败是源于对中国用户需求的缺乏了解还是由于中国政府的地方保护主义政策呢？

答案很难一言概之，因此假设中国提供一个自由的市场环境（如自由的审核制度等），Facebook是否可以取得成功呢？

基于中国社交网络市场的断层，Facebook优越的第三方开发商环境和8大Facebook国际拓展实例等因素来看，在中国市场自由的情况下，Facebook极有可能取得成功。

facebook-world

中国社交网站市场的断层

目前据游戏邦了解，中国社交网站市场仍然算是一个开放的竞争环境，尽管目前抢占该市场的社交网站公司已经由4家减少至2家，分别是千橡互动旗下的人人网和腾讯Qzone。中国社交网站市场陷入了两者的缠斗之中，没有一家公司可以像韩国市场的Cyworld一样独占中国市场。在中国市场之外，社交网站Facebook在全球其他各地击败了多家克隆和劲敌公司，如MySpace（美国及其他市场），StudiVZ（德国）， Hi5（南美洲），Friendster（东南亚），Wretch（台湾）和Orkut（印度和巴西）。

人人网源自于校内网，完全是Facebook社交网站的复制产物，“粗鲁地复制了Facebook的软件代码，甚至没有去除页面底部的‘Mark Zuckerberg产品’标识”（源自于The Facebook Effect 171页）。时至今日，人人网仍大量复制Facebook，虽然新增了一些所谓的“本地化”功能和高价的品牌广告。人人网十分善于复制Facebook的最新功能，譬如Facebook也发布了Connect，Like和Places等功能，未来即将推出Groups功能。目前，人人网宣称其拥有1亿6000万注册用户及3000万日活跃用户。

据游戏邦了解，人人网计划在2011年上市，虽然并不清楚人人网具体的盈收情况，但纵观目前中国的上市互联网公司，估计人人网的价值在10亿美元以上。

中国社交网站市场的另一只领头羊——腾讯Qzone则与Facebook较为不同。Qzone起源于微博平台，其更依赖于匿名制，而非实名制。而匿名制正是MySpace和Wretch等众多社交网站输给Facebook（实名制）的关键因素之一。此前，腾讯也尝试建立面向现实朋友的社交网站，如QQ Campus, XiaoYou等，但均以失败告终，反而为人人网腾出了广阔的发展空间。上个月，腾讯公司构建现实社交网站的第三次尝试QQ朋友正式发布。

究其原因，腾讯主要依靠2，3级城市传统用户的做法可能是造成其现实社交网站蔓延受限的主要原因。要知道，现实社交网站一般遵循“精英传播”模式：Facebook社交网站起源于哈佛大学，而人人网起源于清华大学，两者之间的雷同也许并非巧合。

然而不论如何，腾讯仍然是中国互联网市场的领军企业，在中国主要城市几乎每个白领人士都会拥有1个QQ账号，因此Qzone仍然成为了中国市场主要的社交网站。

另外，Facebook在中国市场还有一个运用不同经营模式的劲敌，即融合了社交网站功能的微博平台——新浪微博。

中国开发商青睐Facebook社交网站

Facebook社交网站的强势价值在于其为第三方开发商（尤其是中国开发商）提供了优良的生存环境。中国拥有许多受本地社交网站局限的高产应用开发商，他们在开心网，Qzone，人人网或51.com等社交网站仅能分享很小的利益空间，因此不得不远赴海外寻找发展空间。

在这方面，社交网站Facebook远比中国任何社交网站都更加“亲民”，其收入分成为开发商占70%，此前很长一段时间第三方开发商可以获得100%的收益。

人人网虽然是一个开放平台，但由于其抄袭制作多款热门游戏的克隆产品，同时更侧重于宣传自家产品，因此并不受第三方开发商好评。此前，在Playfish拒绝人人网提出的条款后，人人网马上开发了一款与Playsifh的Restaurant City极其雷同的应用RenRen Restaurant。据悉，人人网对第三方开发商的抽成高达56%。

与人人网相比，腾讯更是以无视第三方开发商而恶名昭著。因此中国开发商取笑说如果在1美元的盈利中获得“Ten Cent”已经可谓是幸运了。然而自从前段时间与360大战之后，腾讯公司首席执行官马化腾允诺将实行“开放”。让我们拭目以待腾讯未来的表现吧！

与上述两大中国社交网站对比，Facebook社交网站简直可称为“圣人”。在为第三方开发商提供优越的平台环境之外，Facebook China还可以为中国市场引进Zynga,Playfish和Playdom等开发高品质游戏的国际知名开发公司。

8个Facebook国际拓展实例

以下游戏邦罗列出Facebook社交网站进军国际市场的8大实例。其中，Facebook成功抢占了香港，台湾，印度尼西亚和印度市场，而其在巴西市场也表现出了不俗的成绩。而在韩国，日本和俄罗斯3国，Facebook则还需继续努力。

1，香港

Facebook在香港可谓是取得了极大的成功，其用户数占香港总人口的50%以上，即700万香港居民中有360万Facebook用户。香港和台湾拥有与中国大陆相近的文化传承，因此Facebook在香港的成功为Facebook进军中国大陆打下了一剂强心针。

2，台湾

Facebook进军台湾的主要劲敌是台湾本地的社交网站Wretch。Wretch原本是一个微博和照片分享平台，之后转型为社交网站，有点类似于腾讯Qzone。Facebook之所以可以超越Wretch一大功臣正是由于Happy Farm游戏的盛行。因此，政府机构，学校，企业和军队甚至禁止在工作时间使用Facebook社交网站。

3，印度尼西亚

Facebook在2009年末成功在世界第4人口大国取代了社交网站Friendster，其中手机使用是造就Facebook成功的关键因素。除了翻译网站功能之外，Facebook还提供了一些本地化产品。除印度尼西亚之外，社交网站Facebook还“占领”了其他主要东南亚国家如泰国，马来西亚，新加坡和菲律宾等。之后，Friendster社交网站的用户数量逐渐减少，最终出售收场。

4，印度

2010年7月，Facebook成功超越Orkut成为印度最主要的社交网站，当时Facebook甚至还没有在印度成立办公室。究其致胜的原因在于Facebook采用了一款能从Orkut引进好友的工具，并将之翻译成多种印度语言。这在中国社交网站市场绝不可能允许任何类似的“引进朋友”功能，但不论如何Facebook在全球第2大人口大国取得的胜利不容轻视。

5，巴西

在巴西社交网站市场，Facebook仍然落后与谷歌Orkut，然而由Facebook一年之间由150万用户猛增至900万的趋势看来Facebook很快就能赶上Orkut的脚步。

6，韩国

发布与1999年的CyWorld长久以来一直在韩国市场占主导地位。在美国出现Facebook之前，Cyworld就已经基本占据了整个韩国市场。因此，Facebook虽然在韩国发展迅速但也很难挑战cyworld的主导地位。

7，日本

日本社交网站市场可谓是三足鼎立，竞争激烈。Gree，DeNA和Mixi三大社交网站分别占据着2000万至2500万用户。日本市场的特征在于其非常之高的手机使用率。另外，日本社交网站早在2004年2月（早于Facebook）便已经开始运用。而人人网直至2005年10月都没有软上线，因此只能视之为Facebook的克隆产物。

8，俄罗斯

俄罗斯的社交网站市场情况与我的论点完全相反。俄罗斯主流社交网站VKontakte开始运营于2006年9月，也算是Facebook的克隆产品之一。那么我们如何解释Facebook在俄罗斯市场的失败呢？一篇博文上写道“成千上万的国内和国外盗版俄文电影正是Vkontakte超越Facebook的关键因素”。

韩国，日本，俄罗斯和中国是Facebook发展的四大主要市场。对此，Mr Zuckerberg表示Facebook在日本和韩国市场拥有100万用户的同时，其俄罗斯版Facebook也拥有了超过100万用户，同时该数据每六个月呈翻倍增长。在Zuckerberg发表此番言论后的5个月，韩国和俄罗斯的Facebook用户数量实现爆发式增长，尽管其用户基础仍远远少于本地竞争对手（Cyworld和VKontakte）。

中国缺席的Facebook世界

以上实例说明现实关系的社交网站仍有很大需求，目前的问题并非中国适用何种经营模式，而是谁才能将这一模式物尽其用？

鉴于目前中国社交网站市场的断层局面及Facebook优越的第三方环境和国际拓展实例，在未来的两年内，世界各国极有可能构建起一个中国缺席的Facebook世界。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Note: Facebook launched its Chinese-language version on June 23, 2008. Shortly afterwards, it was periodically blocked following the Tibetan riots in Western China. Facebook (and Twitter) were completely blocked in China on July 9, 2009, following the ethnic riots in Xinjiang province.

Virtually all big foreign internet firms have failed in China (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, eBay, etc.) None have had great success. Is this failure attributable to a lack of understanding of local user preferences or government censorship and protectionism?

I think the answer varies from case-to-case, hence a specific counterfactual: would Facebook have won if China were a free market? That is, free of censorship requirements and severe regulatory intervention (e.g., refusal of a virtual goods license or a redirect of traffic a la Google to Baidu).

I believe Facebook would have won, due to the fractured local Chinese landscape, a superior 3rd party ecosystem, and eight international case studies.
China’s Fractured Social Networking Market

China’s social networking market is still an open competition, though I believe the field has now narrowed from four down to two competitors: Oak Pacific Interactive’s RenRen and Tencent’s Qzone. That China had a nasty dogfight instead of a dominant, pre-existing player in the space (like CyWorld in South Korea), indicates that Facebook had an opening. Facebook has overcome clones and competitors all around the world (current stats), including MySpace (US and beyond), StudiVZ (Germany), Hi5 (South America), Friendster (Southeast Asia), Wretch (Taiwan), and Orkut (India and soon perhaps Brazil).

RenRen started as Xiaonei, a complete clone of Facebook, which “blatantly copied some of Facebook’s software code and even initially included at the bottom of each page ‘A Mark Zuckerberg Production Production’” (The Facebook Effect p. 171). RenRen today largely remains a copy of Facebook, though it’s added a handful of ‘localization’ features (footprints, emoticons, etc.) and pricy brand advertising. It’s quick to copy the latest changes from Facebook–RenRen now has Connect, Like, and Places, and Groups are coming soon.

It lends support to Facebook that the leading real-relationship social network in China is a copy of Facebook, not a more localized service like CyWorld in South Korea or Mixi, Gree and DeNA in Japan. It now claims 160 million registered users and 30+ million daily active users.

RenRen intends to IPO in 2011. I don’t know any revenue numbers, but given the buzz surrounding Chinese internet IPOs, my guess is that RenRen will be valued at over a billion USD. I think it’s fair to say that if Facebook could have achieved RenRen’s status in China, it would’ve been a major win.

Tencent’s Qzone is further afield from Facebook. Qzone started as a blogging platform and relies heavily upon nicknames rather than real-life identities, which has been a formula for failure for many social networks against Facebook (see MySpace, Wretch, etc.). Tencent has attempted social networking for real friends (QQ Campus, XiaoYou) and failed, giving RenRen all the breathing space that it needed. Tencent has suffered from embarrassingly poor execution, despite the awesome resources its disposal for building a Facebook-style social network. Its third attempt at real-life social networking, QQ Pengyou, just launched last month.

Tencent’s reliance upon its traditional user base in 2nd and 3rd tier cities may actually inhibit the spread of its real-relationship social networks, which follow a model of ‘elite spread.’ It’s no coincidence that Facebook started at Harvard; it’s doubtful that the site would have had the same success coming from an average university in the U.S. like Chico State. RenRen copied the same strategy in China, spreading from Tsinghua to other elite universities first.

But Tencent is the 800-pound gorilla on the Chinese internet (even 1st-tier city, white-collar users all use one of the 636 million active QQ Messenger accounts), so Qzone (or another Tencent attempt like Pengyou) could still become China’s dominant social network.

Still, the biggest threat to ‘Facebook in China’ (and other social networks), may be a different model altogether: a microblog with social network characteristics, Sina Weibo.
Chinese Developers Love Facebook

An extremely strong asset for Facebook would have been its superior 3rd party ecosystem, in particular applications by local Chinese developers. China has a prolific developer community that’s currently getting screwed by Chinese social networks, which are either completely closed (Kaixin001, Qzone is semi-closed) or offer very low revenue share (RenRen and 51.com). As a result, most Chinese developers are forced to go overseas.

Facebook is a far better partner for developers than any of the Chinese networks. Its revenue share is 70% for the developer; for a long time it was 100%. Hong Kong and Taiwan have hordes of popular Chinese-language Facebook applications.

RenRen is open, but produces in-house copies of popular games (e.g., promoting RenRen Farm over Happy Farm by a 3rd party), to the dismay of developers. When Playfish refused to accept its terms, RenRen subsequently produced an identical copy of Playfish’s Restaurant City game (RenRen Restaurant) that has done well. Last I read, the maximum revenue share on RenRen is 56%.

Tencent is notorious for ripping off 3rd parties. The joke among Chinese developers is that for every dollar the developers you get ‘Ten Cent’–if you’re lucky. After the fight with 360 Anti-Virus (a debacle for Tencent), CEO Ma Huateng has pledged to ‘open up’. “This (the dispute with Qihoo 360) has taught us a good lesson and led to self-examination in my company,” Ma said. We’ll see.

By comparison, these networks make Facebook look like a saint. Moreover, Facebook China would have the added draw of high-quality games from advanced international developers like Zynga, Playfish, and Playdom, which China’s platforms all lack. Chinese users are ardent adopters of social games (which fueled the rise of Kaixin001), so a strong community of local and international developers would have been a formidable asset for Facebook.
Eight International Case Studies

There are eight case studies that shed light on how Facebook may have fared in China (interactive map of Facebook statistics). Facebook has won in the first first four cases: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, and India. It appears to be on its way in a fifth case: Brazil. The final three cases (plus China) are the only major markets in which Facebook is far behind: South Korea, Japan, and Russia.

1) Hong Kong
Facebook is not just successful in Hong Kong, it’s wildly successful, with over 50% penetration of the total population (3.6 of 7 million), apparently the highest rate in the world. Hong Kong and Taiwan were selected as cases because of their cultural relation to mainland China and as a strong bet for the international influencers that would spread Facebook into mainland China. If a mainland site like RenRen or Qzone were the winner in those markets (as is the case with some mainland sites in Hong Kong, like YouKu and Tudou), it would question Facebook’s ability to compete.

2) Taiwan
Facebook faced a local competitor, wretch.cc, which it has since surpassed. Wretch started as a blogging and photo-sharing platform and then transitioned to a social network, akin to Qzone in China. One key to Facebook’s win was the spread of the Happy Farm game game, which Wretch could not match. Government agencies, schools, corporations and military resorted to banning Facebook during work time.

3) Indonesia
Facebook overtook Friendster at the end of 2009, becoming the leader in the world’s 4th most populous nation. Mobile usage was a driving factor. Beyond translation, Facebook offered minimal (if any) localization to my knowledge. In addition to Indonesia, Facebook has also conquered other major Southeast Asian markets: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Friendster went into decline and later found a buyer.

4) India
Facebook overcame Orkut’s lead in users in July 2010, before even opening its office in India. Factors in Facebok’s win include a tool to import your friends from Orkut, a “Lite” version, and translation into several Indian languages (Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam). There’s no chance in hell that China’s competitive social networks would ever allow such an ‘import friends’ feature, but Facebook’s success in the world’s 2nd most populous nation should not be overlooked.

5) Brazil
Facebook is still far behind Google’s Orkut in Brazil, but signs indicate that it’s rapidly catching up (from 1.5m to 9m users in one year). Brazil exhibits the typical social divisions and ‘elite spread’ that catalyze Facebook’s growth.

6) South Korea
CyWorld, which launched in 1999, has long been the dominant player in South Korea. It had nearly reached market saturation before Facebook even launched in the US. South Korea’s CyWorld is a unique situation–I don’t know of any other nation that had a dominant real-relationship social network long before Facebook. CyWorld’s longstanding dominance has made it difficult for Facebook, though it’s now growing fast. But South Korea’s situation is a far cry from China’s open and ongoing social network war.

7) Japan
There’s fierce competition in Japan between three social networks, Gree, DeNA, and Mixi, each with 20-25 million users. Japan has a unique trait: extremely high mobile usage (market leader Gree is 99% mobile). In addition, Japan’s social networks were already online with their own visions in February 2004, just before Facebook. By contrast, RenRen (Xiaonei) didn’t soft launch until October 2005, at which point it was a direct clone.

8.) Russia
Russia’s case is perhaps the strongest counterpoint to my argument. VKontakte, the market leader, started late (September 2006) as one of many Facebook clones. Still, there are unique factors that explain Facebook’s failure. One Russian social media blogger writes, “thousands of pirated copies of domestic and foreign movies translated into Russian… this is the most significant advantage of Vkontakte over Facebook.” If this were RenRen or Qzone’s formula for success (it’s not), that’s obviously not a tactic Facebook could compete on.

South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China are also the four major markets that Facebook is targeting for growth (though how it intends to overcome its block in China anytime soon is beyond me). The Financial Times writes:

When interactions between users within a country outnumber those across borders, Mr Zuckerberg said, “we know a country has tipped”. “We are very close to that in a lot of these places,” he said of his Asian targets. Russia has just passed 1m users, and is doubling membership every six months, while Japan and Korea also have 1m users.

Five months after Zuckerberg’s comments, South Korea and Russia are seeing explosive growth, although they’re starting from a small user base relative to their domestic competitors (CyWorld and VKontakte).
A Facebook World, Without China

These global case studies reveal a universal demand for Mark Zuckerberg’s core focus: social networking based on real-life relationships. The question therefore is not would the model have worked in China, but “who would have executed it best?”

On a level playing field in China, that’s Facebook. Chinese’s fractured social network landscape, Facebook’s superior 3rd party ecosystem, and eight international case studies make the case. It’s distinctly possible that in 2 years the entire world will be connected on Facebook, without China.（Source：techrice）