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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. \nFacebook and Google have already planted their flag by setting up offices in the country \u2014 and now Twitter is joining the fray by opening an office in Sao Paulo, the country's largest city, according to Reuters.\n\"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.\"\nThe 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.\nSEE ALSO: Facebook Finally Beats Google's Orkut ... in Brazil\n\nTwitter is also aiming to bolster the network's popularity before two major events sure to be watched and tweeted about by millions the world over: the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. Last year's Olympic Games in London generated 150 million tweets.\n\"The World Cup and the Olympic Games offer huge opportunities to leverage and show the potential of Twitter,\" Ribenboim told Reuters.\n89 million \u2014 slightly less than half \u2014 of Brazilians are online, giving the country a ranking of fifth overall in terms of web access. What can Twitter do to entice more Brazilians to start tweeting? Share your thoughts in the comments.\nStatistics sources: Semiocast, Socialbakers, International Telecommunications Union. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, webphotographeer."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/01/16/twitter-office-brazil/>