Asian Insight

The Racepoint Point of View

Technode recently published “5 Facts You Must Know Before You Start Talking About Sina Weibo and Twitter” and we thought - there’s got to be more to it that 5 simple facts. So we asked our savvy social media lover, Jeremy Li, whose article on Social Media in China was recently published in The Holmes Report, to give his expert opinion.

For more information, please read the Technode.com. 

1. Twitter is Never popular in China  [Agree] 

Even before Twitter got blocked, it did not have many users in China at all, probably only geeks were playing with it. Now we got millions of Weibo users, I bet most of them do not even know Twitter’s existence. I was in a panel discussing about Weibo’s business value in APEC SME Summit, the panelists sitting besides me even have over one million followers and are now so-called social media experts, but they never used Twitter.

2. Twitter has No Chance in China [Agree, think about MSN+Skype vs QQ, the same story happen again.] 

Twitter is coming to China because it’s launching its Chinese version? Come on! The answer is not something like, if it comes it is already too late (which could be the proper answer to Facebook’s coming to China), etc. The answer is just a Definitely Impossible. How can Twitter handle the content monitoring? You can not imagine how much effort Sina spent on it and the enormous pressure from different authorities. Besides, Twitter’s Chinese version is just a finished project from its translation community. Twitter is to serve oversea Chinese? it sounds silly, the oversea Chinese can still use Weibo, and if they can live oversea they should understand at lease the foreign language.

3. Sina Weibo’s English version, so What? [Conservatively agree. But most oversea users are oversea Chinese does not mean the company is not willing to attract more non-Chinese users.  Actually, Weibo is playing an important role in non-official news reporting, sudden news revealing, background story digging and even negative facts exposure.  Look at QQ, it has launched multi-linguistic version, including English, French and other major languages.  The reason for the prevalence of Twitter should be the dominant position of English-speaking countries.  Anybody who is going to get latest information or get business opportunities should leverage it skillfully.  Imagine one day, when most people in the world are inevitably to have (or have to get) connected with Chinese citizens/customers/manufacturers etc., a Weibo skill should be equally important. ] 

I don’t think Sina is serious about oversea market. English version of Sina Weibo is coming by end of this year? Mightbe. But if it’s just an English interface, it is an easy job. Sina said 10% of its weibo users are from oversea, fine, but how many of them are Not Chinese? I have some foreign friends now on Weibo, but they are living in China! Sina Weibo has an ambitious goal ahead in Chinese web market, which is big and interesting enough to keep it very busy for a long while.

4. Weibo is Not Twitter [Agree.  After all, Sina is the largest, at least one of the largest, news portal in Chinese Internet.  The feature of the company determines that the platform must under the special monitoring of government.  Sina must do something to filter the negative news against the rule of CPC, if it needs to maintain the position as a new portal.] 

It’s better not to compare Twitter and Sina Weibo. Sina Weibo is Not a simple microblogging service any more. We have discussed this many times, and the new version of Sina Weibo makes it even more clear. Microblog is the core in Sina’s ambitious plan, but Sina eventually wants an all-in-one social platform which comes with games, eCommerce, applications etc. Although I still think it is risky for Sina to mix so many stuff on Weibo. If Sina can not leverage the media and the platform, it might piss off many loyal users who have already positioned Weibo as a reliable new media resource.

5. Sina is Not the Mighty God  [Agree.] 

This actually happened to some Chinese media which believes Sina Weibo is creating a new world. We can not overstate Sina Weibo’s value. I do agree Sina has done a great job on Weibo and has been innovative to drive a microblogging service to the next level. However Cao Guowei, CEO of Sina is not the father of microblogging, and we can not ignore the fact that Weibo is inspired by Twitter. Before Sina Weibo’s launch the power of microblogging has been discovered by Twitter and other microblogging service, and it is Not Sina Weibo’s magic!

The below points are also key when looking at Sina Weibo in China.

6. Weibo still demonstrate the elite complexity

 Elites and vocal leaders will be verified by big capital V in the Weibo.  Compare with twitter, Weibo is more like a battle field among elites who are competing for the number of followers, while twitter is more like a equally-talking community.

7. Sina itself is an important content provider on Weibo

 Unlike Twitter, which is a pure online tweet platform, Sina is also a huge content provider/news portal.  This means Sina has enough power to lead the trends and discussion topics on Weibo.  Sina also has the great power to delete the unfavorable content on the platform.  The censorship is a must for its operation in China but is definitely a stain in oversea market.

8. The two platforms are connecting to different online eco-systems

 Twitter is connected closely with other prevailing social media platforms, such as Facebook, Youtube, linkedIn.  But Sina majorly connected with Renren, Youku, Tudou, and other Chinese brothers under.  This is one of the short-boards that block on the way to oversea market.

- Jeremy