Facebook is Finally Looking At Asia SERIOUSLY

I love Facebook as a product, but sadly its team in Singapore doesn’t live up to the standard. Why? Because the Facebook team in Singapore isn’t very friendly and responsive to the blogger community (or maybe it’s just me).

Google Singapore, on the other hand, is doing an awesome job friending the tech community here in our tiny island. Every Googler — from sales and analytics to the PR folks — are open to talking to anyone. And whenever we have questions for the articles we’re working on, they respond quickly to ensure we meet our deadlines.

Perhaps that may change now that Alexander Kleinberg has joined the Facebook Singapore team. So who’s Kleinberg? We briefly heard his story at the Social Media World Forum in Singapore earlier this evening. Kleinberg is the person who helped Google set up its offices here in Singapore. And he joined Facebook just three months ago.

So what does it mean for Facebook in Asia? Nothing much, at least for now. Kleinberg can’t reveal anything until F8, Facebook’s upcoming developer conference on September 22nd in San Francisco is over. But it’s likely that the team in Singapore will play an important role in catalyzing Facebook’s growth in Asia. I wonder if Facebook’s long-rumored expansion to China will be part of his plan?

Anyway, Facebook is hiring in Singapore. And apart from getting more sales people, I’m happy to see that the social network is looking for an APAC corporate communications manager in its Singapore office. I spoke with Kleinberg briefly before he left and was glad that he is open to taking questions from bloggers like us. He seems like a nice guy who could really transform Facebook Singapore (and, by extension, its Facebook-in-Asia mandate) into an APAC stronghold. We’ll get in touch with him again once F8 is over. Stay tuned.