The world’s famous social-networking site Facebook is in talks with Russian mobile operators and is opening up an office in Russia.

Facebook counts more than 400 million active users. Its main competitor, MySpace, already opened a Russian office but closed it in summer 2009 along with offices in a number of other countries. One of the main functions of MySpace’s Russian office was ad sales.

Facebook may also sell space on its site to Russian advertisers, Facebook may reach an agreement with mobile phone carriers. The mobile operators are discussing many different possibilities for cooperation. In particular, there is talk of integrating the social network with the operators, of paying for Facebook content via SMS and of a subsidized fee structure.

Facebook’s goal is to reach 15 percent to 20 percent of Russian Internet users, said an employee at another operator. According to TNS Web Index, there were 32.6 million Internet users in February. The social network could get about 4.9 million to 6.5 million users, said Denis Terekhov, a partner at consulting agency Sotsialniye Seti.

Source: The Moscow Times