In China, Silicon Valley Giants Confront New Walls
Unlike Apple, which as a hardware company is considered less threatening by the Chinese government,
LinkedIn had to go along with a bargain other internet companies have refused.
Xu Mengya, a former marketing employee at LinkedIn China, said
that although there were far fewer LinkedIn users in Australia than China, the network there was much more active.
It also said it would work with a local Chinese company to set up a data center in southwest China as part of a $1 billion investment.
“In general the China market is hard, even for Chinese companies,” said Andy Tian, co-founder
of Asia Innovations Group in Beijing and former general manager of Zynga China.
Even LinkedIn, which played ball with Chinese censors two years ago in order to
get into the country, has had trouble getting traction with a local audience.
“It may not be so much that LinkedIn is having trouble in China
because they’re a foreign company,” said Mark Natkin, founder of tech research firm Marbridge Consulting.
