2011-04-09

China mircoblog wars

In China, competing Twitter-like services are known as 微薄 (wéibó), which literally translates as micro blog. A Twitter knockoff named Fanfou (饭否) was shut down during the Xinjiang riots last year and to the best of my knowledge, it lost its first-mover advantage. Sina (SINA) appears to have taken the lead, with 56% of the microblog market. It's service was running off of its Sina.com domain, but this week it launched Weibo.com to give the service its own identity.

Tencent (0700.HK) has also stepped into the market though, and it is a heavy hitter. It's QQ messaging service is a monster, with over 600 million registered users and concurrent users peaking at over 100 million. It also offers music, streaming TV and movies, games and more through the platform. It also has social networking services and has now added microblogs. Tencent basically offers everything you can imagine and more, although it seems many of the components are not most popular.

Tencent isn't the only competitor. NetEase (NTES), Sohu (SOHU) and Baidu (BIDU) are among those looking to take market share. One battle tactic is the capture of celebrity microblogs, who attract millions of followers.
China’s Microblogging Celebs Blow Past Western Stars
Rumor: Baidu to Overhaul Microblog Platform, Poach Celebrities

Here is an in-depth Chinese article covering the topic: 微博之战——争夺中国人的“意见”与“关系”

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