Flipboard from Sina Weibo

I guess social network concepts and mobiles are not the only one copied in China, but also iTunes app. Check-out this one SinaMag, which is very very similar to Flipboard. It streams content only from Sina Weibo right now, maybe in the future they can combine it with Kaixin001, Renren or other Weibo channels. The app also has several magazines available for reading, but very limited at the moment.

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Got my Sina Weibo Account Verified

And voila on my fourth day of cruising around the Sina Weibo, I've got my account verified. In case you come across http://t.sina.com.cn/adhigoen it is really me :)

How's that for speed? I've been using Twitter almost two years now, I guess I need to wait another couple more years or become a celebrity to get my account verified. Getting your account verified is relatively easy, just go to their dedicated verified page. 

Sina gives verified account to the following:
  • Famous celebrities (of course, what else).
  • Well known or respective figure in the community, guess this is for entrepreneurs or millionaires?
  • Media, publication, journalists and editors.
  • Company or a person representing that company (you may need to present business license or ID that you actually works there).

Two thumbs up or Sina Weibo!

FYI, you need to at least have tweeted... er posted more than 10 original weibo.

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Sina Microblog iPad App Review

Sina Microblog has been on the offensive move, within a year they have achieved more than what Twitter can. Currently Twitter features over 200 million users, but Sina Microblog reached 100 million just in a year. This year they announced two service - direct video uploading and voicemail for sending tweets, as well as Sina LBS or geo-location check-in service directly via their native app (plus you can also now stalk your favorite celebrities). I guess they don't want to lose the race and momentum, as there are many other microblog service in China market. I do think Twitter needs to learn more from Sina Weibo, for example their process is a lot faster on verified accounts if you provide the necessary ID and proved that you are actively using their service.

Below are my review of the iPad App:
  • Looks strikingly similar to... this
  • Its free, that's always a good thing :)
  • Different than the iPhone app
  • Easy to use if you're accustomed to Twitter's native iPad App
  • Preview message on the right side pane
  • Access direct message
  • Upload photo directly, you can also rotate the photo if you wish
  • You can announce where you are directly via their location service
  • You can use the automatic hashtag feature to tag your topic
  • Here is something different from the native Twitter App, the capability of changing the background although currently there are only 5 wallpapers available (hopefully they will open this for users to be able to upload their own favorite wallpaper)
Sina Weibo HD App (launched in 24 February 2011) is available on iTunes and can be downloaded here.
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Yammer, Twitter for Enterprise

Yammer, the twitter version for companies, works well for agencies and for open updates with dedicated clients channel, the team can share and contribute to each other. Yammer is an Enterprise micro-blogging platform, means it is secured and not indexed by search engine nor publicly distributed. Works exactly the same like Twitter, if you know how to text message, you’ll get this baby running in 10 seconds.

How you or your company can use this service:

  • Every team member will have a Yammer account, with desktop application (which will save you time from logging on to systems) and mobile app.
  • Everyone will be updated instantly via quick alert, short and direct to the point 140 character updates. See what your colleagues working on, reply and contribute to help your team.
  • The capability to set a team members update page, as well as dedicated open channel with clients. Update to client what we are working on for them, as well as for them to update us what they are planning on and how we can contribute back.
  • Coordinate a project not only with your team, but also with clients. Share files, update and comments, better collaboration and work flow, where everyone involved is definitely in the loop.
  • With the paid platform you will be able to white label the system, however free secured platform is still available for usage.
  • This will mean, less email bounce back and forth, recorded conversation and streamline simple update.

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China Microblogs

Microblogging is definitely on the rise of China social media world, with more mobile comes with pre-installed apps like Nokia, Android or iPhone.
Ever since Twitter hit the deck, it became popular up until the point it was banned from China. So people here do the best they could, create their own version of Twitter and not only one version, but more.

Here are some of China's version of Twitter:
- Sina Microblog - it's probably one of the earliest, according to Sina they have been nurturing bloggers for quite some time and hosting offline event to promote their bloggers base to actively microblog, so far the effort has paid off with many celebrity or bloggers with high impressions has started to 'tweet' a bit more often. Furthermore they connect their blog and microblog account saving users to open up two accounts.
- Sohu Microblog - both Sohu & Sina has been in fierce competition for a long time, whatever one of them does the other will do it as well. However I have to admit I do like Sohu's microblog, it is clearly defined by topic, trending keywords and celebrity microbloggers.
- QQ Microblog - (although I am quite sure their trending topics is about the 360 antivirus incident).
- Hexun Microblog - is a business focus microblogging service and the first kind I've seen so far, it also promotes celebrity financier or business people's microblog accounts.
- 163 Microblog - honestly I haven't tried this one yet, but worth to mention that 163 has quite a large user base due to their free email service (I am wondering if they did integrate their microblog service within their email).
- There are quite a few more sites that provides microblog service, above are probably some of the largest providers.

Although as far as we go, I have not found a Microblog channel service like HootSuite or CoTweet to manage your microblog or schedule it, much less to track how far does your "tweets" travel. It is a bit frustrating not being able to measure that influence and looks like these Microblog service providers wanted users to log time to their web service rather than opening API service for other developers of platform. So far I've asked several social media analytic companies - popular one such as Radian6 has not yet included the monitoring of Weibo listed above, hopefully this will come up soon.

All of the above Microblog service provides mobile app service.
Above are just some that I've managed to find, but would welcome if there are more you can add to.

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Mengniu Online PR Disaster

An online campaign initiated by Mengniu China Milk company and their PR company Bosse has really back fire big time.
The "public" campaign started when post about Yili milk started from BBS forum, to Microblog and other "family that reported the milk has health problem".
According to Mengniu statement, three of the online team members that handles Mengniu account acted on the online brand attack

Yili was quick and decisive to issue a press statement, include detailed report of their latest health quality results, as well as reported to local authorities on their suspicion of alleged attack from their competitor.  Unfortunately Mengniu did not respond to the matter in the right manner, it did not call for press conference and address the issue in time. Although Mengniu finally released their press statement it was already too late, media journalist has done their own investigations and caught several phone interviews with Mengniu employee that did not know how to respond to the situation.

According to Financial Times report "The campaign, alleged to have involved online articles by fake parents and fraudulent blogs, earned BossePR a fee of about Rmb280,000 ($42,000), said state media reports." As well as "Hong Kong-listed Mengniu was founded by Niu Gengsheng, a former employee of state-controlled Yili."

Mengniu should have responded to the matter accordingly and direct all enquiries into a PR department with crisis communications training, obviously the did not do this. They have also declined for interviews or providing any answers to media, which upsets people even more. They should have also set a micro-site dedicated on addressing the issue, open statement and live press conference; there is no telling how this will affect their market. Yili definitely comes out a winner this time, not only they were fast, they already benefiting from sponsoring Shanghai 2010 Expo.

Several findings on the online world:
Sina has compiled TV coverage regarding the case on a dedicated microsite, you can visit it here (in Chinese).
After running a keywords trending through Baidu Index (for results click here), both Mengniu and Yili keywords has raised significantly.

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