Microblogging in China
| Chinese | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Literal meaning | Microblog(ging) | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | or | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Wēibó |
| Bopomofo | ㄨㄟ˙ㄅㄛ˙ |
| Wade–Giles | Wei-Po |
| Tongyong Pinyin | Wēibó |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | Mèih Bok |
| Jyutping | Mei4 Bok3 |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Wēi bókè or Wēixíng bókè |
Weibo (微博) is the Chinese word for "microblog". It refers to mini-blogging services in China, including social chat sites and platform sharing.
Weibo uses a format similar to its American counterpart Twitter, but used almost exclusively by Chinese language speakers; this has a direct impact on features such as hashtags on Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, which both employ a double-hashtag "#HashName#" method, since the lack of spacing between Chinese characters necessitates a closing tag. Internet users can set up real-time information sharing communities individually, and upload and update information in 140 character blocks.
A major difference is that much more information can be conveyed in 140 Chinese characters than the 140 Latin alphabet characters used on Twitter for many languages.
Sina Weibo is the most visited such site in China. Sina has used the domain name weibo.com for the service since April 2011. Because of the site's popularity and domain name, "Weibo" is often used generically to refer to Sina Weibo.
Weibos are a major source of commentary on a wide range of topics. After the high-speed Wenzhou train collision in 2011 in which 40 people died, online posting played a key role in breaking the news and serving as an outlet for expressing disapproval of the government.
In 2012, there were 309 million people microblogging in China.
"Wei boke" (微博客) and "weixing boke" (微型博客), commonly abbreviated as "weibo" (微博), are Chinese words for "microblog". A China-based microblogging service often names itself a weibo by putting it after the name of the service (e.g. Sina Weibo). A similar word "围脖" (pinyin: Wéibó; literally: "scarf around the neck") is used as Internet slang for "weibo".
Fanfou () is the earliest notable weibo service. It was launched in Beijing on May 12, 2007 by the co-founder of Xiaonei (now Renren) Wang Xing (). The website's layout, API, and mode of use was highly similar to Twitter, which was created earlier in 2006. Fanfou's users increased from 0.3 million to 1 million in the first half of 2009. The users included HP China, the Southern Weekly, artist Ai Weiwei, writer Lian Yue () and TV commentator Liang Wendao ().
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