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Revision as of 10:30, 2 August 2012

"Weibo.com" redirects here. For China-based microblogs (weibos), see Microblogging in China. For other things named "weibo", see Weibo.
Sina Weibo
Type of site
microblogging
Available inChinese:
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
OwnerSINA Corporation
URLweibo.com
CommercialYes
Weibo
Chinese新浪微博
Literal meaningSina Microblog

Sina Weibo (Chinese: 新浪微博; pinyin: Xīnlàng Wēibó; lit. 'Sina Microblog') is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, it is one of the most popular sites in China, in use by well over 30% of Internet users, with a similar market penetration that Twitter has established in the USA.[3] It was launched by SINA Corporation on 14 August 2009,[2] and has more than 300 million registered users as of February 2012. About 100 million messages are posted each day on Sina Weibo.[4]

Naming

"Weibo" (微博) is the Chinese word for "microblog(ging)". Sina Weibo launched its new domain name weibo.com on 7 April 2011, deactivating and redirecting from the old domain, t.sina.com.cn to the new one. Due to its popularity, the own published news of Sina.com and some other media use directly "Weibo" to refer to Sina Weibo sometimes. However, there are other China-based microblogging/weibo services including Tencent Weibo, Sohu Weibo and NetEase Weibo.

History

After the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, China shut down most of the domestic microblogging services including the first weibo service Fanfou. Many popular non China-based microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook and Plurk have been blocked from viewing since then. It was considered to be an opportunity to Sina's CEO Charles Chao.[5][6] SINA Corporation launched the tested version of Sina Weibo on 14 August 2009. Basic functions including message, private message, comment and re-post were made possible in September, 2009. A Sina Weibo-compatible API platform for developing third-party applications was launched on 28 July 2010.[2]

On 1 December 2010 the website experienced an outage, administrators later claimed it was due to the increasing numbers of users and posts.[7] Registered users surpassed 100 million before March 2011.[8] Since 23 March 2011, t.cn has been used as Sina Weibo's official URL shortening domain name in lieu of sinaurl.cn. On 7 April 2011, weibo.com replaced t.sina.com.cn to be the new domain used by the website. Meanwhile the official logo was also updated.[9] In June, Sina announced an English version of Sina Weibo would be developed and launched, where the contents would still be controlled by Chinese law.[10]

Users

According to iResearch's report on 30 March 2011, Sina Weibo had 56.5% of China's microblogging market based on active users and 86.6% based on browsing time over competitors such as Tencent Weibo and Baidu's services.[11] The top 100 users had over 485 million followers combined. Furthermore, Sina said that more than 5,000 companies and 2,700 media organizations in China uses Sina Weibo. The site is maintained by a growing microblogging department of 200 employees responsible for technology, design, operations, and marketing.[12]

Sina executives invited and persuaded many Chinese celebrities to join the platform. The users of Sina Weibo include Chinese Celebrities from Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and Macau movie stars, singers, famous business and media figures, athletes, scholars, artists, organizations, religious figures, government departments and officials.[5][6][13][14] Like Twitter, Sina Weibo has a verification program for known people and organizations. Once an account is verified, a verification badge will be added beside the account name.

Business Strategy

Disguise(Zombie) Users Strategy was widely used in developing Sina Weibo. Under this strategy, a substantial number of disguised or zombie users became the fans of the real users, hence, gave the illusion of a vigorous uptake of Sina Weibo. This strategy was a perfect catalyst for the growth of Sina Weibo. Sina Weibo's competitor,Tencent Weibo is also committed to the same successful strategy. One estimation from a HP social network report cites 20%, if not 50% of forwarded posts as originating from disguised users. [15] [16] And when doing weibo marketing, a weibo marketer should also pay attention to right time, right place and right content. This article studies on the publication time of weibo. For example: company weibo accounts tend to put posts on Monday and Tuesday while users are active on Wednesday and Thursday. Weibo users are not active on Monday and Tuesday while they are active on Wednesday and Thursday. [17]

Features

Sina Weibo implements many features from Twitter. Users may post with a 140-character limit, mention or talk to other people using "@UserName" format, add hashtags with "#HashName#" format, follow other people to make his/her posts appear in users' own timeline, re-post with "//@UserName" similar to Twitter's retweet function "RT @UserName", put a post into the favorite list, verify the account if the user is a celebrity. URLs are automatically shortened using the domain name t.cn like Twitter's t.co. Official and third-party applications make users able to access Sina Weibo from other websites or platforms.

Additionally, users are allowed to insert graphical emoticons or attach own image, music, video files in every post. Comments to a post can be shown as a list right below the post, the commenter can also choose whether to re-post the comment, quoting the whole original post, to commenter's own page.

Unregistered users can only browse a few posts by verified accounts. Neither unverified account pages nor comments to the posts by verified accounts are accessible to unregistered users.

Clients

Sina produced mobile applications for various platforms to access Sina Weibo, the platforms include Android, Blackberry OS, iOS, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone.

Sina also released a desktop client for Microsoft Windows under the product name of Weibo Desktop.[18]

International versions

Sina Weibo is available in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. The site also has versions catering to users from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Weibo is now developing its international version.

Other services

Weilingdi (微领地) is another service bundled with Weibo that is similar to Foursquare, a location-based social networking website based on software for mobile devices. In addition, Sina Lady Weibo (新浪女性微博) is another service, which specializes in women's interests.

Self-censorship

In cooperation with internet censorship in China, Sina sets strict controls over the posts on its services.[19][20] Posts with links using some URL shortening services (including Google's goo.gl), or containing blacklisted keywords,[21] are not allowed on Sina Weibo. Posts on politically sensitive topics are deleted after manual checking.[22] According to anti-online censorship activist Rebecca MacKinnon, Sina Weibo is believed to employ approximately 1,000 people to monitor and censor its users.[23]

On 9 March 2010, the posts by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei at Sina Weibo to appeal for information on 2008 Sichuan earthquake going public was deleted and his account was closed by website's administrator. Attempts to register accounts with usernames alluding to Ai Weiwei were blocked.[24] On 30 March 2010, Hongkonger singer Gigi Leung blogged about the jailed Zhao Lianhai, an activist and father to a 2008 Chinese milk scandal victim. The post was later deleted by administrator.[25]

However compared to other Chinese media formats, weibo services are considered freer.[5] Criticism against the Chinese government is more widespread on Sina Weibo and other weibo services. After the July 2011 Wenzhou train collision, many dissatisfied posts concerning governmental corruption were posted throughout the Sina Weibo.[26]

While weibo services might not always be in favor of government officials, many Chinese officials opened weibo accounts.[13]

From 31 March 2012, the comment function of Sina Weibo was shut down for three days, along with Tencent QQ.[27][28]

In May 2012 Sina Weibo introduced new restrictions on the content its 300 million users can post.[29]

Cultural effect

Livery Airplane

On 8 June 2011, Tianjin Airlines unveiled an Embraer E-190 jet in special Sina Weibo livery and named it "Sina Weibo (Hao)" (新浪微博号). It is the first commercial airplane to be named after a website in China.[30]

References

  1. ^ "Weibo.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  2. ^ a b c "Special: Micro blog's macro impact". Michelle and Uking. China Daily. 2 March 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  3. ^ Rapoza, Kenneth (17 May 2011). "China's Weibos vs US's Twitter: And the Winner Is?". Forbes. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
  4. ^ Cao, Belinda (28 February 2012). "Sina's Weibo Outlook Buoys Internet Stock Gains: China Overnight". Bloomberg.
  5. ^ a b c "Charles Chao - The 2011 TIME 100". Austin Ramzy. TIME. 21 April 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  6. ^ a b "Sina Weibo". Gady Epstein. Forbes Asia. 14 March 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  7. ^ "新浪微博恢复访问 发布故障致歉声明" (in Simplified Chinese). Sina Tech. 1 December 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  8. ^ "新浪发布2010年四季及全年财报 微博用户数过亿" (in Simplified Chinese). Sina Tech. 2 March 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  9. ^ "新浪微博今日启用weibo.com域名 同步更换标识". Sina Tech (in Simplified Chinese). 7 April 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  10. ^ Owen Fletcher (9 June 2011). "新浪英文微博 挑战Twitter？". WSJ (in Simplified Chinese). Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  11. ^ "Sina Commands 56% of China's Microblog Market". Kyle. iResearch. 30 March 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  12. ^ MarketWatch, Caixin Online, Sina's microblogging power, 4 July 2010
  13. ^ a b "Weibo Microblogs – A Western format with new Chinese implications". Thinking Chinese. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  14. ^ Erenlai, Microblogs with Macro Reach: Spirituality Online In China, 31 October 2011
  15. ^ MyDrivers. "新浪微博热门话题有水分：半数转发来自虚假用户". Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  16. ^ MyDrivers. "僵尸粉是微博上的虚假粉丝". Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  17. ^ MyDrivers. "A Key Factor Weibo Marketer Should know: The Publishing Time". Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  18. ^ http://desktop.weibo.com/
  19. ^ "China's Sina to step-up censorship of Weibo". Reuters. 19 September 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  20. ^ "Beijing's Weibo Conundrum". The Wall Street Journal. 21 September 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  21. ^ "新浪微博搜索禁词". China Digital Times. 7 July 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  22. ^ "Radiohead enters censored world of Chinese social media". Global Post. 3 July 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  23. ^ MacKinnon, Rebecca. "Testimony of Rebecca MacKinnon to the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights "Promoting Global Internet Freedom"". New America Foundation. Retrieved 11 December 2011.
  24. ^ "著名艺术家艾未未挑战新浪微博的网络审查". Boxun.com. 10 March 2010. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  25. ^ "遭勒令刪去內地微博文章 撐維權爸爸 貼文抱不平 梁詠琪被河蟹了". Apple Daily. 1 April 2010. Retrieved 1 April 2010. Video News
  26. ^ The Wenzhou Crash and the Future of Weibo, Penn Olson - The Asian Tech Catalog, 1 August 2011
  27. ^ Johnson, Ian (31 March 2012). "Coup Rumors Spur China to Hem in Social Networking Sites". The New York Times.
  28. ^ "China: Microblog Commenting Restored". The New York Times. 4 April 2012.
  29. ^ http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/20120529/news_20120529_56_843891.htm
  30. ^ "新浪微博号彩绘飞机亮相".

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