Invite colleagues
The popular murmur at the moment is that Baidu and Facebook are in the middle of building a partnership. There is such a positive feel around this news, reflected in the US Stock Market when the shares of Baidu rose more than 4% on Monday 11th April. Both giants will be benefit from this partnership with Facebook finally getting entry to China, and Baidu being linked to the very popular networking site.
If Facebook gets to China via Baidu, the ultimate hope of everyone (especially those whose social lives would crumble without their FB accounts) is that someday we are all able to use Facebook and keep in touch with friends and family overseas without the hassle of using a VPN. Unfortunately for now, this deal will only likely involve Facebook joining with Baidu to create a Chinese networking site.
Given the fact that in 2009 Facebook was banned in China, parties involved must overcome many hurdles and restrictions set by the Chinese government. Some of us are pessimistic about the realization of this partnership as China’s market is very restricted and regulated, thus a site like Facebook might be hard to operate freely. The core essence of the site is the freedom of speech and information sharing. Should government censorship come into the equation, it would wipe out the basic purpose use of Facebook.
One thing that we can all count on, everyone will be sitting tight to hear about the progress of this gigantic-sized deal…
Written on Saturday, 23 April 2011 13:58 by Conny Wiryawan
