Facebook making inroads in Russia

Facebook is the world's largest social network site, with 500 million-plus members at last count. However, there are plenty of big markets where Mark Zuckerberg's creation isn't dominant.

In Japan, Facebook doesn't rank in the top three, and the site isn't much of a force in Brazil or China, two populous countries where Internet usage is off the charts.

The outlook for Facebook in Russia may be more promising, despite the popularity of homegrown social network sites. Facebook officially launched its site in April and only ranks No. 5 so far, according to Internet tracker comScore, but its growth has been impressive. From January until August in 2010, its Russian operation has racked up a 376 percent increase in users, to 4.5 million, according to comScore data.

Early last year the company cut deals with Russian wireless carriers Beeline and Mobile TeleSystems, so that their subscribers could tap the mobile version of Facebook. To overcome the language barrier, Facebook allowed users to suggest translations for the name of features not easily understood in Russian, such as "poke" (as in trying to get another Facebook user's attention), and then let the site's members vote them up or down.

"Russian is a very complex language, so we allowed the users to translate the interface themselves so that it captures the complex grammar," says Javier Olivan, a London-based Spaniard who holds the title Head of International Growth at Palo Alto's Facebook.

Russia, then China

Its founder has made no secret of his ambitions to thrive in Russia, a market where other Western players, including Google, have struggled to get their footing. Speaking at an Oct. 17 event at Stanford University, Zuckerberg said that if Facebook succeeds in penetrating the Russian market, it might have a shot at doing the same in China, the country with the largest number of netizens.

Russians' heavy use of social network sites makes the country an ideal test case. Russians spend 9.8 hours per visitor on a monthly basis on such sites - more than double the world average, according to comScore.

Climate and isolation

Why do Russians while away so many hours online? For one thing, the climate: Staying indoors and socializing via the Internet is much more attractive when winter lasts six months.

Then there's the physical isolation, compounded by poor infrastructure, especially in cities like Murmansk, which lies north of the Arctic Circle.