By Raunak Haldipur
The Chinese government is not known for being shy about censoring the internet. This includes making some news websites inaccessible, leaving companies like Google and Facebook on the sidelines. China banned Facebook in 2009. This moved paved way for social media such as WeChat, QQ, and Weibo to gain a bigger market share. Since then Mark Zuckerberg has been working towards finding a solution.
Moments v. Colourful Balloons
Zuckerberg has been meeting different government authorities and working on ways to Facebook back to China. In May, Facebook quietly launched a photo sharing app in China called Colourful Balloons. This app is identical to Facebook’s Moments app, which is available in all other countries. The app allows users to share their photos with their family and friends. The difference between the Moments app and Colourful Balloons app is that the Moments app interfaces with Facebook, while the Colourful Balloons app interfaces with WeChat, which is China’s largest social network.
How the application went unnoticed
Facebook released the app in May through a local company by the name Youge Internet Technology, which did not hint at any branding of Facebook. It appears that measures were taken to ensure that the app does not spread widely too quickly so as to not gain unwanted attention. The quiet roll-out of the Colourful Balloons app shows the extent to which Facebook is willing to go to gain the untapped 700 million internet users in China. Many speculate that the release must just be to gauge and gain insights from the way Chinese users share their photos with their family and friends.
Facebook’s end-goal in this project is to learn how apps become successful in China. However, the Colourful Balloons app doesn’t appear to be doing well so far. It is currently ranked 758th on the Chinese App Store and has just 52 reviews despite being out for almost 4 months. However, it has received good ratings from the users, averaging at 4.5 out of 5 stars. It is still not clear how this compares to the expectations Facebook holds for their app, given its stealth release.
The future of Facebook
Facebook has more than two billion users around the world, and Mark Zuckerberg has often asked where its next billion users will come from. There is a ripe market of 1.3 billion potential users in China which has until now remained outside of Facebook’s reach. We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country in different ways, Facebook said in a statement to the New York Times.
It is not clear whether Chinas various internet regulators are aware of the apps existence. This under the table approach could cause Facebook new difficulties with the Chinese government which has so far maintained a precedent of strict oversight and control over foreign tech companies. If this matter escalates, Facebook might be forced to bid the Chinese market adieu. It remains to be seen what the Cyberspace Administration of China thinks about this move by Facebook.
Featured Image Source: Visual Hunt