VietNamNet Bridge – Though running its own social network already, the Corporation of Finance and Promoting Technology (FPT) still has decided to sign an agreement with the social network Facebook.

FPT last week announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Facebook, under which, according to Nguyen Thanh Nam, former General Director of FPT, the company will become the official developer of Facebook’s applications on Vietnamese market, and at the same time, will act as the advertisement partner that provides advertisement services to Facebook on the market.

FPT can see benefits in cooperating with social network

Explaining the decision to cooperate with Facebook, Nam said Facebook is not only a social network, but it is also becoming an environment for developing new-generation applications. Being the biggest software developer in Vietnam, FPT will have major advantages in working with Facebook to bring benefits to consumers.

It seems that the benefits from the cooperation are so attractive that FPT has decided to “ignore” a factor which could be a key problem for other companies: FPT itself is also developing a social network – banbe.net.

A question has been raised that if there is any benefit conflicts when a company cooperates with another company which is its rival.

“At this moment, we cannot see any benefit conflicts in the deal. Banbe.net has a new way of accessing new subscribers, while it has a specific business model which is fastened to the products and services being provided by FPT,” Nam said.

He went on to say that the development of Facebook will help create a habit of using social networks among people. Besides, the cooperation with Facebook would create the opportunities to integrate some FPT’s services into Facebook, including a payment service.

It is clear that Facebook’s end goal in its cooperation with FPT is to strengthen the influences of the social network in Vietnam. Facebook has employed a person in charge of business development, especially in the development of the relations with the government and partners in Vietnam.

Social network management – how?

There is no legal document in Vietnam which says about the limitation on the social network development. A lot of social networks have been developed by domestic companies, such as Zing Me by VNG, Go.vn by VTC, a company with the state capital contribution and banbe.net by FPT.

Some Internet companies have complained that they have to obey many regulations, while international companies do not have to bear any constraint: they do not have to pay taxes, and they have no barriers.

Unofficial sources said that 15-30 percent of Internet advertisement turnover in Vietnam is flowing to the pockets of international companies such as Yahoo, Google and Facebook. Therefore, domestic companies have urged the government to find out other effective management methods.

When entering China, big companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo or Twitter are required to set up legal entities in the country and follow the requirements set by the authorities. This means that they have to accept censorship and share users’ information with the authorities.

If they do not accept the requirements, they will be blocked. The fact that the big websites in the world do not make such compromises has paved the way for domestic websites to develop, like Tudou which is similar to Youtube, or Baidu which is similar to Google.

In Vietnam, Yahoo is one of few international companies that has set up legal entities in Vietnam and has been following Vietnamese laws.

When asked if the cooperation with Facebook will ensure the capability of accessing Facebook, Nam from FPT affirmed that both Facebook and FPT will obey all Vietnamese laws.