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Facebook in Indonesia - the need for IT research center in Indonesia

I was told that in terms of number of Facebook users, Indonesia is number 3 in the world - after USA and UK. [reference / url needed] Whoa! This is something that you cannot predict.

I can assure you that this is true. In Indonesia, everybody (and his/her pets) perhaps has facebook account. Some even have more than one accounts. (One for each personality? ha ha ha.) The number of Facebook users in Indonesia exceeds the number of people in Singapore and Malaysia! Take that!

Because of Facebook, many people buy BlackBerry (BB). Yes, you may want to check with RIM that the number of BlackBerry users in Indonesia is unbelievably large. I guess, we can safely say that facebook is a killer application for BlackBerry. At least, that is true in Indonesia. My point is that Indonesia is an important market for BlackBerry and Facebook. This is also true for Nokia. (Indonesia is perhaps the biggest market for Nokia smartphone, such as communicator!)

Why Facebook and BlackBerry are popular in Indonesia? I suspect it has something to do with our social culture, that tends to gather and talk among families and friends.

Facebook allows us to connect with people from our past. Once we are connected, we tend to have reunion; university reunion, high school reunion, preschool reunion, what not. Yes, you would not believe the number of reunion that have happened because of facebook.

I don't think any (IT/business) expert can predict this. And I can assure you that non-Indonesian experts would find it difficult to understand this. That is why, I urge big IT companies (such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Nokia, Sony, ...) to open their research centers in Indonesia. They need to be here to understand the market. You don't want to miss the opportunity, do you?
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Comments

Anonymous said…
you should write more often here. the topic is getting more interesting :)
4:45 PM
Budi Rahardjo said…
yeah. I hope we can generate more serious discussion here. (and perhaps not-so-serious one as well).
4:57 PM
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