What would China deal mean to Facebook?

20.12.2010
When a photo of Facebook CEO meeting with the head of China's largest hit the Internet, speculation began to run wild.

Chinese censors have blocked from being used there since 2008, and Zuckerberg has that he would like to get a piece of that massive market. So with , the co-founder and CEO of the | search engine Baidu | http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9144478/Baidu_could_be_the_big_winner_in_Google_vs._China ), the Internet began to buzz with talk of Facebook trying to work its way into China.

"It's a big black hole for Facebook," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with the Yankee Group. "If it's going to be the world's premier social networking tool, they can't forget about a sixth of the world. The value of any network goes up when you have more people on it, and it does open the door for different sponsors and applications."

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.

Zuckerberg reportedly has been for this trip and is supposedly on a vacation with his girlfriend, but analysts say there seems to be a bigger purpose to his China visit.

Facebook in July announced that it had hit a major milestone. It had brought onboard. Considering that last January there were 384 million Internet users in the country, which has an overall population of more than 1.3 billion people, there are a lot of potential Facebook users to be tapped in that country.