Facebook and Baidu, A Logical Step

Mark Zuckerberg has been studying Chinese for a  long time. So, this week's anouncement of the joint venture between Facebook and Baidu to launch a Chinese social network shouldn't come as a surprise. It is a clever move from one of the two biggest internet companies in the world. But in fact, there are two worlds: the West and China. China is like the land at the other side of the Great Wall. It is huge and there are plenty of opportunities but you have to be Chinese to really understand how to do business in that promised land.

If you think about other internet companies that have done the same thing, the first name that comes to my mind is Yahoo! with their investment in Alibaba Group. Other companies like eBay or Microsoft, and of course Google, are still suffering over how to do business in China. Facebook knows that they need to understand every single detail of the nature of online life in China to conquer their Chinese souls and make them part of a new social network. Baidu wants to know how to run a social network and make it a profitable business. A joint venture seems to be the best option for both parties as a first step into the Chinese social network market.

At the moment, there is no downside on the horizon. Facebook and Baidu can be confident about their joint venture. There is a lot of work to be done and a lot of to demonstrate. But now that the phantom of the old days of the internet bubble are coming back, my only worry is that this kind of announcement is aimed at the financial markets. Facebook's valuation is greater if you add the Chinese market to the equation. Mark Zuckerberg has demonstrated that he has the will to push Facebook to keep growing. China could be an obssesion for him and the joint venture could be the first step to something bigger. We will see how the things go.

Content-related video: