Facebook flirts with local geeks in battle for Russia

Looking for a public bathroom in Moscow? Facebook Inc has you covered.

Still a dwarf in Russia, the world’s largest social network is courting local geeks to build apps tailor-made for their home market. Its goal is to win over users in Europe’s most populous country and catch up with local rivals VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, which combined attract 10 times more traffic.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg hosted about 200 developers in Moscow this week in a six-hour competition to create apps meant to get people to sign up and log in daily. An app mapping Moscow’s toilets was on the list, while a Russian-made tool to boost your friendships through Facebook got top spot.

“The reason people love Facebook is because they can play games on it or because they can get their music there,” said Julien Codorniou, Facebook’s head of game partnerships in Europe. “To get ahead in Russia, we need Russian developers who can develop great content in Russian.”

In Russia, Facebook is behind —its 3.5 million daily users compare with VKontakte’s 22 million and Odnoklassniki’s 16 million, data by research firm TNS Global shows. Menlo Park, California-based Facebook is betting that new apps will attract more traffic, and that its global scale of 1 billion users will convince Russian developers to jump ship.

Facebook needs to win over those trying social networking for the first time, while also persuading VKontakte and Odnoklassniki users to sign up on a second platform. About 63 percent of Russia’s teens and adults use the Internet, up from 39 percent five years ago, according to TNS Global, leaving growth potential. Russia’s population is 143 million.

“There are few places in the world that have such a large number of potential users,” said Brian Blau, an analyst at researcher Gartner in San Francisco. “Internet penetration is still not that high, so there’s room to grow and Facebook has to be there when more Russians sign up to social networks.”

Facebook is looking to replicate the success it had in Brazil, where it came from behind to surpass a strong incumbent. Orkut, which had a head start and dominated the country’s social-networking market for years, ceded its No. 1 position to Facebook in December, according to ComScore Inc.

Zuckerberg, who is 28 and ranks 82nd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a personal fortune topping $11 billion, told Russian developers that reach was Facebook’s main advantage over local competitors.