The Mongols tried it in 1223 and again in 1237. Napoleon gave it a go in 1812, and more recently, the Germans did it on this very day in 1941.
This week, Facebook launched an assault on the nation’s popular social sites, Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, by releasing a Russian version of the ever expanding Facebook.
Facebook is predicted to join the losers corner in the Russian online market, joined by fellow American companies Google and MySpace, who have both struggled to find solid footing in the foreign environment.
Experts agree that American companies such as Facebook need to be particularly careful and well researched when targeting culture specific markets such as China and Russia. Barriers exist not only in direct language translation, but also in the subtle and not so subtle differences that lie between countries.
There’s a Russian joke: A train compartment. A family: a small daughter, her mother and grandma. The fourth passenger is a Georgian. The mother starts feeding a soft-boiled egg to the daughter with a silver spoon. Grandma: “Don’t you know that eggs can spoil silver?” — “Who would have known!”, thinks the Georgian and replaces his silver cigarette case from the front pants pocket to the back one.
Did you get that?
No?
Exactly!
(via The New York Times)
Gabrielle Zlotin 