Breaking: Facebook To Enter Into Partnership With Friendster Buyer MOL
We're hearing that Facebook and Malaysian payments company MOL Global will be holding a press conference shortly to announce a significant new partnership around gaming and payments in Asia.
Context & Ripple Effects
MOL Global, the Malaysian payments company that confirmed its acquisition of social network Friendster, is reported by TechCrunch to be minutes away from announcing a significant partnership with Facebook around gaming and payments in Asia. The deal remains unconfirmed until the press conference, but the logic is visible in what each side holds: MOL has just bought a social network with deep roots in the region, and Facebook has the games and the audience.
For Facebook, the confirmed picture as of mid-2010 is one of scale without full monetization everywhere: it dominates third-party site logins ahead of Twitter, Google and Yahoo, and outside investors like the Samwer Brothers have been backing it since 2008. Its Facebook for iPhone app alone reaches nearly 55 million monthly active users. What a payments partner adds is a way to collect money for virtual goods in Asian markets where international cards are not the default.
First-order effects
- If announced as reported, Facebook gains a local-currency collection rail for game purchases across MOL's Asian footprint, removing a friction point for the social-game developers who sell goods on its platform.
- MOL converts its freshly acquired Friendster asset into a bridge to Facebook rather than a competing network, immediately upgrading the Malaysian company's standing with both Facebook and the game publishers that depend on it.
Second-order effects
- Regional payment intermediaries competing with MOL face pressure to strike equivalent deals with Facebook or other Western platforms, or risk being cut out of the fastest-growing slice of virtual-goods revenue.
- Social-game publishers on Facebook get a credible path to monetize Asian users they could previously reach but not reliably bill, shifting where new game launches and localization budgets go.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward Western consumer-internet platforms entering Asian markets through local payments and distribution partners rather than direct operations, making licensed local payment processors strategic gatekeepers rather than commodity vendors.
The trend: Global social platforms are assembling monetization country by country, with local payments partnerships becoming the standard vehicle for turning Asian audiences into paying gamers.