In China, we are still talking about Facebook and trying to learn from every change it makes; but in the meanwhile, we don't really care about Facebook that much. It probably doesn't help that Facebook is 非死不可 which in Pinyin is FeiSiBuKe, pronounced similar to Facebook and means Dooms to Die. With the fast growth of Chinese Facebook-clones, including Xiaonei and Kaixin001 etc. and newcomers operated by the portals such as BaiShehui by Sohu, Pengyou by Sina, Taojianghui by Taobao etc, if you asked those Chinese students or those who do not pay attention to the web industry, they don't even know who is copying whom.

I was sitting in a panel with a former Facebook senior manager in Tencent MIND summit 2009, Guangzhou and we talked a lot about China web as well as Facebook. The million-dollar question is what's the best strategy for Facebook in China, and the conclusion I want to tell you here is (it might sound a bit aggressive but I think it makes sense): Forget About China.

If you are not ready for China, don't come - I was leading Netvibes in China but it did not work out in the end. The product itself is one thing as Netvibes's personalized page is just too good (advanced) for the Chinese web. But, Netvibes was not ready too. We actually had a very good start, e.g. together with Sohu, we launched the first Open Platform in China in Jan 2008. We also signed an agreement with Maxthon, the leading Chinese browser and were in discussions with Monternet (China Mobile), Yahoo China, Comsenz, CSDN etc which were looking into Netvibes' widget technology; We reached tens of leading Chinese services providers (media, video-sharing, image-sharing, SNS, music, blog services, rss players,etc). All of which sounds super great, but ultimately led to trouble. We did not have the resources (money, team etc) to handle them. No matter how strong you are in western market, once you are in China, things can be totally different. Do not assume your good Chinese partners want you all that badly. In most cases they can live quite well without you (with local partners), so stay close to them, push them on e projects instead of waiting for them. China, in general ,is cheap, but cheap does not mean you don't need money. In web 2.0, Word-of-Mouth (WOM) is brilliant, but remember sometimes that WOM is driven by money, especially in China. Have you seen Facebook officially run any promotion campaigns in universities? I don't know of any. But in China, offline promotion on campus is quite common and costly.

If you believe your global strategy can work, don't come - In other words, if you neither understand Chinese Internet culture nor listen to your local advisers, it is almost impossible to succeed in the end. Myspace China is a good example, and Censorship could be an interesting topic too. OK, I know most people think censorship in China is a bad thing as they believe in User Generated Content (UGC); i.e they 'respect' whatever users generated. So, the decision makers who are sitting far far away from China tell you, NO! we are not going to compromise with local regulation. But don't forget, censorship as far as I know, exists to some extent everywhere, not just in China. If you have double standards, don't complain when your business fails.

A year ago, rumors about Facebook in China were everywhere. Which local social network would it acquire, who might be appointed to be the CEO of Facebook China, etc. Too much buzz about you, but nothing becoming real, does no good for your future plans. Young Chinese users don't know Facebook still, and the worst thing I heard is some of them who know Facebook are saying, hm... Facebook looks like Xiaonei, Kaixin001 etc.

My former Facebook friend thinks Facebook will eventually come to China, but not in near future. So Mark, until you make a clear decision, please forget about China. I think this advice it applies to other web companies who want a slice of the China cake too.