Weibo (waybore) is Chinese for microblogging.
The popularity of social media – services like Sina Weibo, the Chinese Twitter – is growing at a “staggering” rate in China which has the world’s most internet savvy users.
Sina’s Weibo microblogging platform has c.250 million registered users who are typically white collar workers and serious bloggers. Sina Corp will launch an English-language microblog aimed at users abroad, entering a market dominated by U.S.-based Twitter.
Tencent Weibo has c.233 miliion registered users who are younger and more interested in keeping in touch with their friends and what is going on via their smartphones. Tencent has already launched China’s first English microblog service to target the international market. For the first time, non-Chinese speaking users can sample a little taste of Weibo, the Chinese social networking phenomenon. Here is a link to their products and services page.
Microblogging has led to a revolution in the way people communicate with each other in China, according to internet guru Dr Kai-Fu Lee who has 7m+ followers in China. Dr Lee previously worked for Apple, Google and Microsoft. He is one of the founders of Innovation Works.
“Microblogging leverages the wisdom of the crowds.
The good things get forwarded, or re-tweeted, and bubble up to the top,”
The reason why “Weibo Works Better than Twitter” is becuase 140 characters in Chinese can contain as much as 5 times more information so this means that the Weibos are more content full. Weibo is a mash up of Twitter and Facebook which means that users are also able to access a suite of multi media options.
The target audience for the English version of the Sina and Tencent Weibo offerings is mostly Asia Pacific users from countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines. However don’t be surprised if the user base is increasingly from farther afield.
This Digimund Infographic has out of date user numbers because of the staggering growth rate of both providers.
thisiswhatgoodlookslike 