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"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
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinXīnlàng Wēibó
Bopomofoㄒㄧㄣ˙ㄌㄤ˙ㄨㄟ˙ㄅㄛ˙
Wade–GilesHsin-Lang Wei-Po
Tongyong PinyinSīnlàng Wēibó
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationSān Lohng Mèih Bok
JyutpingSan1 Long6 Mei4 Bok3

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 250 million registered users as of October 2011.[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 Urumqi riots, China shut down most of the domestic Twitter-like services including the first weibo service Fanfou. Many popular non China-based microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook and Plurk have been blocked 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 August 14, 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 July 28, 2010.[2]

On December 1, 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 March 23, 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 updated also.[9] In June, Sina announced an English version of Sina Weibo would be developed and launched, where the contents would still be controled by Chinese law.[10]

Users

According to iResearch's report on March 30, 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 (mostly from mainland China, also many from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau) movie stars, singers, famous business and media figures, athletes, scholars, artists, organizations, government departments and officials.[5][6][13] 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.

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 7.

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.

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.

Censorship & free speech

Due to the Internet censorship in China, Sina set strict controls over the posts on its services.[14][15] Posts with links using some URL shortening services (incl. Google's goo.gl), or containing blacklisted keywords,[16] or in Tibetan language are not allowed on Sina Weibo. Posts on sensitive topics forbidden in China (e.g. Human right, Liu Xiaobo) would be deleted after manual checking.[17]

On March 9, 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. Any account with a name possibly relevant to Ai Weiwei has then been blocked to be created.[18] On March 30, 2010, Hongkongese singer Gigi Leung blogged about the jailed Zhao Lianhai, an activist and father to a 2008 Chinese milk scandal victim. The post was later forcibly deleted by administrator.[19]

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.[20]

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

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.[21]

References

  1. ^ "Weibo.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  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. ^ http://www.ciccorporate.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=748:groupm-china-and-cic-identify-luxury-voice-in-chinese-social-media&catid=52:archives-2011&Itemid=158&lang=en
  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 Magazine. 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. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  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. ^ "China's Sina to step-up censorship of Weibo". Reuters. 19 September 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  15. ^ "Beijing's Weibo Conundrum". The Wall Street Journal. Sept 21, 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ "新浪微博搜索禁词". China Digital Times. 7 July 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  17. ^ "Radiohead enters censored world of Chinese social media". Global Post. 3 July 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
  18. ^ "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.
  19. ^ "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
  20. ^ The Wenzhou Crash and the Future of Weibo, Penn Olson - The Asian Tech Catalog, August 1, 2011
  21. ^ "新浪微博号彩绘飞机亮相".

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