World Business

The social network site has vaulted over rival MySpace in worldwide auditory growth, expressions of gratitude to tools that transform content into frequent languages

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by Catherine Holahan

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to illustrate the impact of his social network, he tells a legend from one place to another several young religious militants from Lebanon who changed their view of Western agriculture end Facebook friendships. The subtext to the tale is that free expression of ideas, enabled by dint of. the Web, bridges deep cultural divides. But we knew that: It’s one of the central concepts behind the Olympics, after totality. What we didn’t know is that Facebook is in Lebanon.

In fact, Facebook is quickly expanding in many regions. The location is the top global convivial network, according to figures released by comScore (SCOR) on Aug. 12. Of Facebook’s 132 million users, pressingly 63% are outside North America. The site, that had been translated into 20 languages including French, Spanish, and Mandarin, has recently added 69 more. "Now, through translations, we are seeing a lot of growth in international countries," says Javier Olivan, international manager at Facebook in a modern interview.

Facebook isn’t the only festive network focusing on international swelling. As American sites such as Facebook and MySpace, News Corp.’s (NWS) leading U.S. social network, saturate their home markets, they’re looking without the least clew to fuel the audience growth that has made them so inviting to advertisers, audiences, acquirers, and would-be investors. MySpace, for example, has expanded to more than 29 countries, including India and Korea, in the gone by few years,.

MySpace is particularly frequented by users in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Australia, Britain, and Malaysia, according to a study showing where social networks are principally popular that was released on Aug. 12 by Pingdom, a Swedish site that monitors Web place availability. Pingdom based its findings on the regions where a particular social reticulated is searched for most many times via Google, the greatest in number popular examine machine. For prompting, the countries with the greatest interest in LinkedIn, a network aimed at professionals, are India, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and the U.S., says Pingdom.

But Facebook has been particularly prosperous in provisions of sheer user adoption. Its numeral of new members was up 153% in June from the same month a year earlier, driven largely by astronomical growth in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Among specific countries, Turkey, Canada, Britain, South Africa, and Colombia receive the greatest interest, according to Pingdom. In comparison, Facebook’s North American audience grew equitable 38% in June vs. the year-earlier month and MySpace was up solely 3%, according to comScore.

Facebook owes its results, in part, to its technology-driven international strategy. Rather than launch local-language versions of Facebook for new markets, complete with a local Facebook bureau, Facebook opted to provide translation tools (BusinessWeek.com, 5/14/08) that let users take the existing site and personalize it in their own tongue. The tools, which users can twinge to appoint more accurate translations, helped Facebook roll out in new countries faster than people rivals, giving it an early presence in local markets that grew exponentially as users encouraged friends to join the site. "It was a very scalable process," says comScore senior analyst Andrew Lipsman. "They have gotten these things up and going quickly, and the audiences are up."

MySpace has taken a dissimilar tack. It is opening offices in countries where it knows there are ad dollars, as well as friends, to exist made. The strategy makes the company slower at expanding in reinvigorated markets, but MySpace believes the come near in the end makes its local offerings better able to mirror the cultures of new countries while also catering to advertisers. MySpace’s non-U.S. audiences pleasure soon account for more than 50% of the site’s revenues, says Jeff Berman, MySpace’s president of sales and marketing.

Hi5 is following a hybrid strategy. In May, the San Francisco-based social network launched tools letting users translate the place into any language. Before that, it hired a third-party provider, Lionbridge, to translate the site into languages like Japanese and have effect it reflect the added countries’ cultures. The company’s user base has grown to more than 56 million, thanks in large part to those efforts, says comScore’s Lipsman. "Hi5 has in reality put an emphasis attached cultural relevance beyond accurate the translation," says Lipsman. The site remains popular throughout Latin America, home to four of the five countries where it shows up most often in searches, according to Pingdom.

Although Facebook has focused on tools, it isn’t ruling out opening local bureaus to prevent make the site more culturally relevant—and to sell ads. But executives aren’t convinced that new offices are necessary. Once there are users, the thinking goes, advertisers testament come. "The platform is open, and because soon as advertisers find value they just start creating campaigns," says Olivan. "So it is in some degree much universal."