Russian Facebook Clone Planning International Expansion: Peculiar Competition to Facebook

I honestly could not believe my eyes when I’ve read the headline that mentioned that Vkontakte, the Russian social networking giant is planning an international expansion. I know that many Russian internet tools and services are mere clones of the US products. I know that many of them were initially launched here because the owners of original services simply did not bother to enter the Russian market themselves – and the market demanded such services.

The largest Russian social network Vkontakte is definitely one of such services: looking at the social network as it was originally launched made one instantly think of Facebook (in its early years prior to the recent interface changes) as the Russian developers copied absolutely everything down to the smallest button.

Yet I do think that Facebook somehow deserves its own lack of success in Russia and its current 7^th position in the social networking field here because when the team finally noticed the Russian market and decided to enter it, it was definitely too late with the local giants (one of them being an obvious Facebook clone) happily sharing the market without any intentions of giving any significant market share to Facebook itself.

But for such an obvious clone of an INTERNATIONAL service to plan an INTERNATIONAL expansion is another thing and definitely not something I can understand myself. First of all, it is rare that one sees a Russian service planning an international expansion to anywhere but the countries of the former Soviet Union – normally you see western services launched here instead (rarely but this is still a more typical pattern). But of course the most ridiculous part is planning any expansion at all with your original prototype being popular everywhere in the world with your own country of residence being a rare exception.

So what type of expansion are they planning now? News is that the website owners have acquired a domain vk.com (vk being short for Vkontakte which itself can be translated from Russian as “in touch” or “in contact”). The amount of purchase is not announced so rumors are it is anywhere from several thousand dozens to $100k but without the official confirmation we have nothing but our guesses, of course.

The next step will obviously be translation (as the social network is currently available in Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian and English languages which is probably insufficient for an international expansion). The website team promises we will see the website on the newly acquired domain carrying Vkontakte version in 12 new languages as soon as in October.

Further on they will have to consider registering the trademark consisting of the letters V and K as this is something that should be done for unhindered international operations. After all, after stealing someone else’s idea, design and functionality, you should definitely think about legal aspects in advance – not to become a victim yourself.

The reasons behind the move are not clear and the team does not really seem to be willing to explain them honestly so we now have plenty of guesses here from the experts. Of course some people suggest that this is something of a PR action intended to attract some potential buyer for the social network. To me this does not seem likely as I don’t think Vkontakte investors really need to sell the property right now since it still has plenty of potential in terms of advertising revenue, especially as the advertising market recovers from recession.

Another guess is that Vkkontakte is actually looking for growth opportunities abroad now that they have probably reached their glass ceiling in Russia and hardly expect to maintain the amazing growth rates that are so very much needed whenever you talk to any potential advertiser. And while this sounds kind of obvious, I can hardly imagine exactly how Vkontakte will promote the clone of Facebook to the highly competitive markets already dominated by Facebook.

But the most ironic aspect about the entire situation is that Facebook and Vkontakte already have some money in common after Digital Sky Technologies (DST), the owner of Vkontakte, invested $200 million in Facebook. Honestly, I have no idea how the two social networks are supposed to compete on the international market in such a ridiculous environment. Or maybe the investment was initially intended to neutralize Facebook protests for when the planned international expansion turns into reality?

Via (in Russian)