Facebook frenzy bypasses Asia

Facebook’s popularity seems to be growing exponentially in the West, but this success does not seem to be mirrored on the other side of the world.

In the last twelve months Facebook and other similar social networking sites have seen their membership grow enormously throughout America and Europe. Facebook has experienced an increase of more than 270% to 52.2 million users; Bebo’s membership has increased by 172% to 18.2 million, and MySpace by 72% to 114.1 million. However, this growth has been predominantly limited to the US and Europe, with two-thirds of Facebook’s members from North America and 17 per cent of them from Europe. 62% of MySpace users are located in North America and 25% of them in Europe. Only 7.1% of Facebook’s members, which equates to 3.7 million people, are located in the Asia Pacific.

This is in contrast to other social networking sites such as Friendster which has 89% of its 24.7 million users located in this region. Experts say that Friendster’s popularity in Asia is due to them catering specifically for the local market. In Malaysia the company has created links on their site to local pop stars, creating a lot of interest. The global internet information provider comScore, has said that if Facebook wishes to copy this success they will have to take in to account the local market and create a website that caters for their needs. They added that getting a product globally-accepted is a problem which all international brands face, and that what works in one country may not in another, and the company has to make adjustments accordingly.

Facebook faces further competition from local websites in Asia which have an inside view of the local market. One of the largest networking sites in China is Xiaonei, which is incredibily popular, and something which international social networking sites will find hard to match. Tudou, a video-sharing site similar to YouTube, is another extremely popular site in China, with 40 million users viewing 1.2 billion videos a month online, in direct competition with multi-national brands who wish to crack the market. Other popular video-sharing sites in China such as Mofile, 5show, and 56, are also competiting with the likes of Facebook, MySpace and Bebo for the hearts of the Asian population, something which doesn’t seem to be forthcoming anytime soon.

Source:
Times Online