Twitter Opening Office in Brazil to Compete With Facebook and Google

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Brazil is social media-obsessed: It's home to more than 65 million Facebook users, more than 40 million Twitter users and 29 million users on Orkut, a Google-owned service that predates Google Plus.

Facebook and Google have already planted their flag by setting up offices in the country — and now Twitter is joining the fray by opening an office in Sao Paulo, the country's largest city, according to Reuters.

"We believe our new office in Brazil will allow us to get closer to the users and show the value of our platform," Twitter's country manager for Brazil, Guilherme Ribenboim, told Reuters. "Brazil has rather mature Internet and advertisement markets. Our audience is very big and active. We are going to try to monetize it."

The move is highly tactical: many Brazilians have been switching from Orkut, which was hugely popular, to more modern social networks popular elsewhere in the world. However, Facebook has been taking a larger slice of the social pie than competitor Twitter. By putting an office in the heart of Brazil, Twitter is likely hoping to convince those abandoning Orkut to focus their social energy on Twitter over Facebook.