Facebook Found Having Purchased Chinese Domain

Reuters, having very recently documented the mere purchase of an Internet domain by Facebook, effectively opened a large window into the mind of the chief executive of the Web’s second-largest social network.

The name in profile is, very simply: 'Facebook.cn'.

The suffix tells you everything, doesn’t it? Yes, Facebook is now revealed to have made itself the owner of a China-compatible Web address, which it is quite likely to use as, well, the gateway for its future Asian operations. Obviously.

Why is this newsworthy? Well, for one, China is home to the second-largest sum of Internet users in the world, and so it makes absolute sense that an enterprise like Facebook - which is most certainly looking to grow itself massively to compete with its rivals (mainly MySpace) at a point in time when nearly everyone and everything under the sun is looking to globalize further and further - looks to a market still very much in development to expand itself.

Sure, Facebook has dabbled Asian-centric markets, what with its establishment of an “English-language China network,” which the company says holds a 100,000-strong membership, as well as several “alumni groups” for those associated with higher-education inside the PRC, including Peking and Fudan universities. But it has yet to make a massively large impression on the Chinese populace, college-affiliated or otherwise.

Seems now like Zuckerberg’s planning to do just that.

Of course, there are quite a large number of variables for Facebook to consider prior to opening up a full-fledged channel for China’s citizens, the most controversial of which is no doubt the myriad censorship rules and regulations the Chinese government requires of all entities, local and foreign. Like Google, Yahoo!, and other businesses that have opened operations inside China in the last several years, Facebook will undergo the same - or perhaps even greater – scrutiny by watchdogs throughout the world for moves it makes in pursuit of the Chinese market, and there will be plenty of choices the company will be forced to make that really have no “right” answer. That is, if it wishes to continue trending hastily upward for many years ahead.

It’ll be interesting to see what Zuckerberg and his advisors decide to do with this catch, now that his overvalued network has a key into an area of the world which still appears very ripe for the picking.

What do you make of this report? Dish your take in the comments!