福布斯】中國微博和美國推特究竟誰是贏家？

福布斯】中國微博和美國推特究竟誰是贏家？

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

中國科技公司新浪擁有普通話和廣東話版本的推特。他們的產品微型博客——俗稱微博（發音有點像“夠煩的”）——完全占據了中國微型博客平台的領導地位。微博有點像推特和臉譜的雜交品種，而不是單純克隆推特。據全球營銷和媒體關係公司Oglivy提供的數據，截止到2010年3月，微博有5百萬用戶。到2011年第一季度，微博的用戶迅速膨脹到1.4億，公司在5月11日的財務報表中披露了這一數據。

新浪微博的用戶幾乎是推特的8倍。根據艾迪森研究機構在2010年的一份名為“推特在美國的使用現狀”報告，推特在美國大約有1700萬用戶。即使其用戶數量在今年翻倍——這種可能性極小——推特與新浪比較起來依然相形見絀。實際上，艾迪森提供的數據顯示，推特在2011年第一季度截止時隻有大約2000萬用戶。

去年，推特創始人Jack Dorsey對中國藝術家艾未未說，推特準備推出中國版本的網站。一年之後，艾未未由於其發表的不同政見，不是孤單地待在鐵窗之後，就是在勞改營中度日。而在艾未未看來可以幫助中國民主化自由言論的推特，也依然不見動靜。

穀歌本來也應該扮演解放者的角色，它在2010年初，因不願繼續給中國的監控者和黑客們好臉色而退出中國。穀歌的中國擁躉在公司總部外臨時搭建的一個紀念碑下留下鮮花，這家公司在中國支撐了不到4年時間。

類似的事情現在又發生了。這次的美國龐然大物是推特，在片刻之間他就被中國一個或許稱不上是對手的公司在計謀、策略和手段上全麵超越。如果推特曾經看到了中國大陸的一絲曙光，那麽它的如意算盤看起來也完全落空了。

實際點說，投資者無法以推特股東的身份參與決策，卻可以投資新浪。

美國的基金經理，比如Ivy Pacific的Frederick Jiang就比較喜歡新浪。5月17日，新浪股價上漲了6.27%，每股112.94美元，在5月13日出現了三年來最大跌幅之後迅速恢複。這支股票似乎有令人恐怖的無限上升勢頭。從受益基準的期貨價格來看，這家網絡媒體公司的市值至少是穀歌的兩倍。

基於新浪的名聲，微博的用戶數量和內容持續飆升，長年自我監控的經曆讓微博得到了政府的接納。由此看來，微博在中國有著深厚的發展根基，而推特顯然就是個棄兒，似乎不大可能在這個世界上發展最快的社交網絡市場上獲得容身之地。等它進入中國的時候，用戶們說不定已經開始鍾愛另外一種更加快速的社交網絡形式，當然，也有一個業界的領頭羊等待推特來挑戰。

新浪並不是市場中唯一的玩家，在線媒體公司騰訊在2010年4月啟動了自己的微博，據國際數據集團（IDG）報道，它目前有1.6億用戶。新浪和騰訊兩家公司的用戶數量就基本上等於美國的人口數量。

當然，不能把中國的14億人口與美國3.07億人口相比。但是，如果美國所有的人都用上推特，那麽推特的競爭對手們——主要是新浪和騰訊——也可以輕鬆做到這一點，那麽他們還有足足三倍的成長空間。

IDG的博客作家、中國科技新聞網站Tech Node編輯盧剛在5月16日寫道，微博“現在是中國最強大的社會媒體渠道，”並且“新浪全麵的產品組合必將吸引更多的消費者”。他提到了新浪最新開發的信用係統和團購方案，用戶可以以此來獲取點數，還能用點數在今後的交易中抵用現金。微領地是另一項與微博捆綁的服務，有點類似Foursquare。

微博是如何贏利的呢？IDG的盧認為，推特目前對這個問題的答案是sponsored tweets（譯者注：推特廣告平台）、促銷趨勢，以及為公司客戶提供數據分析。新浪的經營模式基於互動、精準廣告、即時搜索、付費內容、電子商務、類似Farmville（譯者注：Facebook版本的開心農場）的社交遊戲和無線增值服務。微博的增長市場預計在2013年完全成熟，微博的單一用戶將占據所有互聯網用戶的30％。相對增長比率並不高，但絕對增長值很高。未來會有更多的公司利用微博作為營銷工具，意味著新浪和騰訊將有更大的收入預期。

盧寫道：“微博發展的方向是與其它服務形成綜合性的網絡產品，它的前景無疑是光明的，尤其對新浪來說。”

綜合所有宣傳信息來看，新浪還算不上一個印鈔機。該公司上周發布的信息稱，今年第一季度的淨收入隻有1500萬美元，而2010年第一季度的淨收入是2440萬美元；廣告收入從5430萬美元增長到7230萬美元。如果後三個季度的數據能與此持平，那麽新浪在2011年的廣告收入將達到2.892億美元，超越eMarketer對私人持股的推特今年廣告收入1.5億美元的預測。

推特在美國互聯網市場上的占有率相當低，根據皮尤互聯網和美國生活項目提供的數據，隻有不到10％的互聯網用戶擁有推特賬號。新浪的1億用戶與中國本土人口數量之間也是差不多這個比例，所以雙方的市場占有率不相上下。

現在還很難宣布誰是贏家，因為中國和美國的這類產品市場就像蘋果和果汁一樣不大具有可比性。一個身處自由卻已經成熟的市場，另一個身處不大自由卻有巨大發展潛力的市場。但僅從數字角度來看，中國的微博似乎有更多的廣告收入、更多的用戶，雖不及推特的全球普及率，但格外受美國投資團體的青睞。這些都幫助新浪的股價在5月17日上漲了6.27%，在過去12個月中上漲了224%，在過去5年中上漲了320%。有時候，把錢花在贏家身上會讓你覺得物有所值的。

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.