福布斯】中国微博和美国推特究竟谁是赢家？

福布斯】中国微博和美国推特究竟谁是赢家？

China’s Weibos vs US’s Twitter: And the Winner Is?

中国科技公司新浪拥有普通话和广东话版本的推特。他们的产品微型博客——俗称微博（发音有点像“够烦的”）——完全占据了中国微型博客平台的领导地位。微博有点像推特和脸谱的杂交品种，而不是单纯克隆推特。据全球营销和媒体关系公司Oglivy提供的数据，截止到2010年3月，微博有5百万用户。到2011年第一季度，微博的用户迅速膨胀到1.4亿，公司在5月11日的财务报表中披露了这一数据。

新浪微博的用户几乎是推特的8倍。根据艾迪森研究机构在2010年的一份名为“推特在美国的使用现状”报告，推特在美国大约有1700万用户。即使其用户数量在今年翻倍——这种可能性极小——推特与新浪比较起来依然相形见绌。实际上，艾迪森提供的数据显示，推特在2011年第一季度截止时只有大约2000万用户。

去年，推特创始人Jack Dorsey对中国艺术家艾未未说，推特准备推出中国版本的网站。一年之后，艾未未由于其发表的不同政见，不是孤单地待在铁窗之后，就是在劳改营中度日。而在艾未未看来可以帮助中国民主化自由言论的推特，也依然不见动静。

谷歌本来也应该扮演解放者的角色，它在2010年初，因不愿继续给中国的监控者和黑客们好脸色而退出中国。谷歌的中国拥趸在公司总部外临时搭建的一个纪念碑下留下鲜花，这家公司在中国支撑了不到4年时间。

类似的事情现在又发生了。这次的美国庞然大物是推特，在片刻之间他就被中国一个或许称不上是对手的公司在计谋、策略和手段上全面超越。如果推特曾经看到了中国大陆的一丝曙光，那么它的如意算盘看起来也完全落空了。

实际点说，投资者无法以推特股东的身份参与决策，却可以投资新浪。

美国的基金经理，比如Ivy Pacific的Frederick Jiang就比较喜欢新浪。5月17日，新浪股价上涨了6.27%，每股112.94美元，在5月13日出现了三年来最大跌幅之后迅速恢复。这支股票似乎有令人恐怖的无限上升势头。从受益基准的期货价格来看，这家网络媒体公司的市值至少是谷歌的两倍。

基于新浪的名声，微博的用户数量和内容持续飙升，长年自我监控的经历让微博得到了政府的接纳。由此看来，微博在中国有着深厚的发展根基，而推特显然就是个弃儿，似乎不大可能在这个世界上发展最快的社交网络市场上获得容身之地。等它进入中国的时候，用户们说不定已经开始钟爱另外一种更加快速的社交网络形式，当然，也有一个业界的领头羊等待推特来挑战。

新浪并不是市场中唯一的玩家，在线媒体公司腾讯在2010年4月启动了自己的微博，据国际数据集团（IDG）报道，它目前有1.6亿用户。新浪和腾讯两家公司的用户数量就基本上等于美国的人口数量。

当然，不能把中国的14亿人口与美国3.07亿人口相比。但是，如果美国所有的人都用上推特，那么推特的竞争对手们——主要是新浪和腾讯——也可以轻松做到这一点，那么他们还有足足三倍的成长空间。

IDG的博客作家、中国科技新闻网站Tech Node编辑卢刚在5月16日写道，微博“现在是中国最强大的社会媒体渠道，”并且“新浪全面的产品组合必将吸引更多的消费者”。他提到了新浪最新开发的信用系统和团购方案，用户可以以此来获取点数，还能用点数在今后的交易中抵用现金。微领地是另一项与微博捆绑的服务，有点类似Foursquare。

微博是如何赢利的呢？IDG的卢认为，推特目前对这个问题的答案是sponsored tweets（译者注：推特广告平台）、促销趋势，以及为公司客户提供数据分析。新浪的经营模式基于互动、精准广告、即时搜索、付费内容、电子商务、类似Farmville（译者注：Facebook版本的开心农场）的社交游戏和无线增值服务。微博的增长市场预计在2013年完全成熟，微博的单一用户将占据所有互联网用户的30％。相对增长比率并不高，但绝对增长值很高。未来会有更多的公司利用微博作为营销工具，意味着新浪和腾讯将有更大的收入预期。

卢写道：“微博发展的方向是与其它服务形成综合性的网络产品，它的前景无疑是光明的，尤其对新浪来说。”

综合所有宣传信息来看，新浪还算不上一个印钞机。该公司上周发布的信息称，今年第一季度的净收入只有1500万美元，而2010年第一季度的净收入是2440万美元；广告收入从5430万美元增长到7230万美元。如果后三个季度的数据能与此持平，那么新浪在2011年的广告收入将达到2.892亿美元，超越eMarketer对私人持股的推特今年广告收入1.5亿美元的预测。

推特在美国互联网市场上的占有率相当低，根据皮尤互联网和美国生活项目提供的数据，只有不到10％的互联网用户拥有推特账号。新浪的1亿用户与中国本土人口数量之间也是差不多这个比例，所以双方的市场占有率不相上下。

现在还很难宣布谁是赢家，因为中国和美国的这类产品市场就像苹果和果汁一样不大具有可比性。一个身处自由却已经成熟的市场，另一个身处不大自由却有巨大发展潜力的市场。但仅从数字角度来看，中国的微博似乎有更多的广告收入、更多的用户，虽不及推特的全球普及率，但格外受美国投资团体的青睐。这些都帮助新浪的股价在5月17日上涨了6.27%，在过去12个月中上涨了224%，在过去5年中上涨了320%。有时候，把钱花在赢家身上会让你觉得物有所值的。

原文：

That thing near the Twitter bird is a Weibo.

Chinese tech company Sina Corporation (SINA) is the mandarin and cantonese version of Twitter. Their microblogs – better known in China as Weibo (pronounced ‘way-bore’) – has firmly established itself as the leading Chinese microblogging platform. Weibos are more of a Twitter-Facebook hybrid than a pure Twitter clone. Sina’s Weibo had more than 5 million users in early March 2010, according to global marketing and media relations firm Oglivy. By the end of the first quarter 2011, the Weibo population swelled to 140 million users, the company said in an earnings statement dated May 11.

Sina’s Weibo has nearly 8 times more users than Twitter. In 2010, Twitter had approximately 17 million users in the US, according to an Edison Research report called Twitter Usage in America 2010. Even if Twitter doubled in size this year, which is unlikely, its Twitter account numbers would be dwarfed by Sina accounts alone. In fact, according to Edison, Twitter has around 20 million users as of the first quarter 2011.

Last year, Twitter creator Jack Dorsey told Chinese artist Ai Weiwei that Twitter would launch a China version of its website. A year later, Ai Weiwei is either behind bars or in a labor camp for his dissidence, and Twitter, which Weiwei said would help democratize free speech in his country, is also nowhere to be found.

Google was also supposed to be liberator. It retreated in early 2010 after giving up trying to play nice with Chinese censors and hackers. Chinese fans of Google left flowers as a make-shift memorial outside corporate headquarters there. The company didn’t last four years in China.

A similar story is taking place now, whereas a US juggernaut in its space — in this case Twitter — is being outwitted, outmatched and outplayed by a would-be Chinese rival that, if Twitter ever did see the light of day in the mainland, will surely be outgunned, too.

On a practical side, investors can’t get in on the action as a Twitter shareholder, but they can invest in Sina.

US fund managers, like Ivy Pacific’s Frederick Jiang, love Sina. The stock settled 6.27% higher on Tuesday, May 17 to $112.94 per share, fast recovering from its biggest weekly decline in three years on May 13. The stock has what appears to be a frightful if not infinite momentum. On a forward price to earnings basis, the online media company is at least two times more expensive than Google.

Because of Sina, Weibo’s user base and content source keeps growing. Years of self-censoring experience have earned Weibo acceptance from the government. For these reasons and more, Weibo is in a very strong position in China and Twitter is the clear outcast, unlikely to ever get a foothold in the world’s fastest growing social networking market. By the time it does get into China, the chances are that the world would have moved on to other forms of rapid-fire social networking, or committed to other brands.

Siba is not alone. Online media competitor Tencent Holdings launched its own Weibo in April 2010 and it’s reported to have 160 million users, according to International Data Group, or IDG. Combined, Siba and Tencent account for nearly the entire US population.

Of course, one cannot compare China’s 1.4 billion inhabitants to the US population of 307 million. But if the US had every person on Twitter, then a Twitter-like competitor — Sina and Tencent, in particular — could easily do the same, and still have the elbow room to grow three times larger.

IDG blogger Gang Lu, also founding editor of China tech news site Tech Node, wrote on May 16 that Weibo is “now the most powerful social media channel in China” and that “the integrated nature of Sina’s products can be expected to attract more consumers,” he said, citing its new credit system and group-purchasing deals where users can earn points they can redeem for other deals or purchases. Weilingdi is another service bundled with Weibo that is similar to Foursquare.

How does Weibo make money? Twitter’s answer, so far, is sponsored tweets, promoting trends and data analysis for enterprise accounts, writes Lu at IDG. Sina’s business model is based on interactive, precision ads; instant search; paid content; e-commerce; social games like Farmville and a wireless value-added service. The Weibo growth market is predicted to fully mature in 2013. Unique Weibo users will take up 30% of total internet users. The relative growth rate is slowing, but absolute growth remains high. More companies will turn to Weibo as a marketing tool in the future, meaning more revenue possibilities for Sina and Tencent.

“The Weibos are ever developing into integrated webs of services,” Lu writes. “The future certainly looks bright, especially for Sina.”

For all its hype, Sina is not a money making machine. First quarter net income was just $15 million, down from $24.4 million in the first quarter of 2010. Ad revenues rose to $72.3 million from $54.3 million, the company reported last week. If they could match that in the next three quarters, that would bring Sina’s 2011 ad revenue to $289.2 million, surpassing eMarketer’s estimates that the privately held Twitter could reach $150 million in ad revenue this year.

Twitter’s penetration of the online US market is low, under 10% of internet users have a Twitter account, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Sina’s 100 million users are about the same percentage of China’s domestic population, so penetration is actually similar.

It’s hard to declare a winner when the Chinese and US markets for these services are like comparing apples to apple juice. One exists in a free, yet mature market. The other exists in a less free, and growing market. But looked at from a pure number’s standpoint, China’s Weibos seem to be bringing in more ad revenue, have more users than Twitter, including Twitter worldwide, and enjoy the fanfare of the US investment community that’s helped push Sina shares 64.11% higher as of market close May 17; 224% higher over the last 12 months, and 320% over the last five years. Sometimes, you get what you pay for when you buy the winner.