重生之单纯人生txt下载:新浪微博的社交大梦想

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曹
国伟(Charles Chao)已将新浪(Sina Corp.)打造成中国的Twitter。现在他还想让它成为中国的Facebook。
在首席执行长曹国伟带领下，新浪从一家专注于新闻和博客的门户网站转变为中国最受关注的社交媒体公司。他推出新浪微博(Sina Weibo)虽然还不到两年，但这项服务已经大受欢迎。用户可通过新浪微博向粉丝发布Twitter一样的简短信息。据新浪统计，截至今年3月份其微博用户数量超过了1.4亿。上海睿析科技(RedTech Advisors LLC)估计，新浪拥有中国57%的微博用户和中国87%的微博活动。
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来来往往：曹国伟：高调公司里的低调CEO
但在竞争极其激烈的中国互联网行业，这样的领先地位很难保持。竞争对手正在将大量资源注入社交网络领域，给新浪带来了压力。最主要的对手是现金充裕的行业巨头腾讯控股(Tencent Holdings Ltd.)，它正在咄咄逼人地推销自己的微博网站。
接受采访时，曹国伟列出了他为拓宽网站功能、吸引更多用户而对新浪微博做出的一系列调整。
目前正在测试的新版本拥有与以往不同的页面设计，它将用突出位置推荐值得关注的用户、提供游戏和其他应用程序。曹国伟正设法让用户能够更加方便地定义他们与其他用户的关系，比如把那些真正的朋友、而不仅仅是“粉丝”的用户标注出来。另外还会有“个人助理”之类的专门服务，以帮助网站最有影响力的那些用户解决技术问题。
曹国伟曾是新闻记者，已过不惑之年，不苟言笑。他说，新浪微博的最初版本是切入市场的恰当方式，但现在人们非常需要交流，需要在朋友之间、在相互认识的人之间分享信息。
社交网站已在世界各地开花，全球用户正在越来越紧密地相互联接。但和很多其他市场不一样的是，网民数量超过4.5亿、多于其他任何国家的中国市场，却不为Twitter和Facebook这样的大公司主导。事实上中国政府已经屏蔽了国内用户对这两家网站的访问。美国社交网站MySpace旗下的聚友网(MySpace China)处境艰难。《华尔街日报》的母公司新闻集团(News Corp.)部分持股MySpace。
Bloomberg News
在首席执行长曹国伟带领下，新浪从一家专注于新闻和博客的门户网站转变为中国最受关注的社交媒体公司。
相反，众多中国本土公司正在争相填补这块市场空白。中国最大的Facebook类网站之一的运营商人人网(RenRen Inc.)今年5月在美国上市融资7.43亿美元，用以扩展网站的功能。其竞争对手、Happy Networks Ltd.持有的开心网(Kaixin001)，也运营着一家类似于Facebook的社交网站。中国搜索巨头百度(Baidu Inc.)正在尝试将其广受欢迎的“百度贴吧”留言板往社交网站的方向转变，而且它也有自己的微博服务“百度说吧”。在新浪打压下，“说吧”未能发力，目前已经停用。搜狐(Sohu.com Inc.)和网易(NetEase.com Inc.)也提供微博服务。
腾讯的网络游戏业务做得很成功，但其高管说，他们正着力于社交网络，特别是腾讯自己的微博网站。为此，腾讯像新浪正在做的一样，让第三方开发商为它开发应用程序。分析人士说，腾讯的挑战主要在于新浪的用户，因为新浪微博的用户主要是一群视野开阔、拥有较大社会影响力的人士，新浪以这一用户群为基础既可以向外扩展，也可以向下扩展。相比之下，腾讯的用户主要是二三线城市更年轻的网民，以这些用户为基础向上扩展用户的难度更大。
中国互联网公司在投资者中引发狂热，其估值有些堪与美国互联网公司比肩，不过中国在线广告市场的规模仍小于美国。中国社交媒体网站共有数亿名用户，他们通过手机和电脑在这些网站上互发信息和玩游戏。外国互联网公司要进入中国，需面对政府网络审查这一难题，对于曾被中东抗议者利用来组织示威游行的Facebook来说，更是这样。尽管如此，Facebook目前仍考虑打进中国市场。
曹国伟说，微博不会变成Facebook，但会加设更多与Facebook类似的功能，这样就可以新应用软件为依托建立更紧密的社交联系。
分析师说，新浪的转型将会是一项挑战。新浪1999年成立，后在美国纳斯达克(Nasdaq)挂牌上市，其规模远远小于部分竞争对手。新浪的市值接近60亿美元，与百度400多亿美元和腾讯近500亿美元的市值相比，可谓小巫见大巫。腾讯显然有更多财力可花在市场营销方面。截至今年3月，腾讯的市场营销费用为17亿美元，而新浪只有5.776亿美元。
腾讯说自己的微博用户已超过2亿。由于计算方法不同，很难比较这些公司的用户数量。此外，腾讯还有庞大的QQ用户。QQ是腾讯的旗舰产品，也是中国最受欢迎的即时通讯平台。通讯还运营一个名为QQ空间(Qzone)的社交网站。
曹国伟说自己并不发愁。他说，这里比的不是你有多少钱，而是产品优化和终端用户体验。
为全球投资者提供资讯的研究网站IChinaStock说，腾讯用户间已建立了社交联系，它距“中国版Facebook”这个目标更接近，但若按媒体影响力论，腾讯微博将很难超过新浪微博。
中国社交媒体不断增长之际，中国政府正好在加大力度规范互联网使用。过去两年，有越来越多的海外网站在中国遭到长时间屏蔽，在这种情况下，中国网民虽然数量庞大，但他们参与更多全球社交网络的行为却受到抑制。中国网民称，登陆谷歌公司(Google Inc.)Gmail等受欢迎的海外网站速度较慢，稳定性也较差。研究人员说，谷歌服务器流量目前好像受到限制。为保留政府下发的运营执照，新浪等中国网站则被要求进行自身监督，完成这项工作代价颇高，共有数十名员工对网站进行全天候监控。
虽然新浪以组织热点讨论闻名，有时这些讨论还涉及地方政府腐败和房价飙升等争议性问题，但该网站上的大多数言论都与政治无关。出现敏感话题时，新浪可创造性地限制谈话内容，而不是将其全部删除。例如，它会屏蔽敏感关键词的搜索，但不阻止网民在自己的微博上发表博文。
当被问及是否担心政府审查可能影响微博可直抒胸臆这个特点时，曹国伟说，新浪有多年在维持网站运营的同时处理内容监管的经验，新浪可以处理好这个问题，对此自己有信心。
Chinese Tweet Site Bolsters Social Core
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Charles Chao has built Sina Corp. into a Chinese Twitter. Now he wants it to be a Chinese Facebook, too.
Mr. Chao, Sina's chief executive, has led the company's transformation from an online portal focused on news and blogging to China's most talked-about social-media company. Since he launched Sina Weibo -- which lets users send short, Twitter-like messages to their followers -- less than two years ago, the service's popularity has exploded, with more than 140 million users as of March, by Sina's count. RedTech Advisors LLC, of Shanghai, estimates that Sina Weibo has 57% of China's microblog users and 87% of its microblog activity.
But in the ultracompetitive world of China's Internet industry, such leads are hard to keep, and Sina faces pressure from rivals, who are pouring resources into the social-networking sector. Chief among them is Tencent Holdings Ltd., an industry giant with a big pile of cash that has been aggressively promoting its own microblogging site.
In an interview, Mr. Chao laid out a series of changes he is making to Weibo (which literally means 'microblog') to broaden its offerings and attract more users.
A new version of the site, now being tested, will change its look with prominent sections recommending users of interest and offering games and other applications. Mr. Chao is trying to make it easier for users to define their relationships with other users -- such as by labeling those who are real friends, as opposed to those who are just 'fans.' And there will be special services, like 'personal assistants,' to help the site's most influential users with technical questions.
Weibo's initial incarnation was 'the right way to enter this market,' said Mr. Chao, a former journalist in his 40s with a serious demeanor. But now there is 'a great need for people to communicate, to share among friends, among people who know each other.'
Social-networking sites have taken off in much of the world, with users across the globe becoming increasingly interconnected. But unlike many other markets, China -- which has more than 450 million Internet users, more than any other country -- isn't dominated by big U.S. companies like Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. In fact, China's government blocks access to those two sites for users inside the country. MySpace China, an affiliate of the U.S. social-networking site that is partly owned by News Corp., has struggled. News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.
Instead, a host of domestic Chinese companies are competing to fill the space. RenRen Inc., which runs one of the biggest Facebook-like sites in China, raised $743 million in a U.S. initial public offering in May that it is using to beef up its offerings. Rival Kaixin001, held by Happy Networks Ltd., also operates a social-networking site similar to Facebook. Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. is trying to turn its popular message board, Baidu Tieba, or Postbar, into more of a social network, and had its own microblogging service, Baidu Shuoba, or Baidu Talk, which failed to gain traction against Sina and now has been suspended. Sohu.com Inc. and NetEase.com Inc. offer microblogs.
Tencent has a successful online-game business, but executives say they are focusing their efforts on social networking and on their Weibo site in particular, including efforts to have third-party developers make applications for it, as Sina is doing. Tencent's challenge lies largely in Sina's users, generally a cosmopolitan set of social 'influencers' from which Sina can expand outward and downward, compared with Tencent's younger users in China's lower-tier cities, from which it is harder to move up, analysts say.
China's Internet companies have generated enormous enthusiasm among investors, and some of their valuations have reached levels similar to those of their U.S. counterparts, even though China's online-advertising market is still smaller than the U.S. market. Chinese social-media websites collectively have hundreds of millions of users who swap messages and play games on the sites using phones and computers. Facebook itself is considering entering China despite the difficulties of dealing with government censorship -- especially for a site that has been used as an organizing tool by protesters in the Middle East.
Weibo won't be turning into Facebook, Mr. Chao said, but will have more Facebook-like features to allow for 'stronger social relationships based on our new applications.'
Analysts say the transformation will be a challenge. Sina, which was launched in 1999 and trades on Nasdaq, is far smaller than some of its rivals. Its market value of nearly $6 billion is a fraction of Baidu's more than $40 billion and Tencent's nearly $50 billion. Tencent has significantly more resources to spend on marketing, with $1.7 billion in cash as of March, compared to Sina's $577.6 million.
In addition to the more than 200 million users Tencent claims for its microblogging site -- it's hard to compare the companies' user counts, with their different methods of counting -- Tencent has legions of users of its flagship product, QQ, China's most popular instant-messaging platform, and runs a social-networking site called Qzone.
Mr. Chao said he wasn't worried. 'It's not a competition about how much cash you have,' but about 'product improvement' and 'end-user experience,' he said.
IChinaStock, a research website for global investors, says Tencent, which already has social connections between its users, is closer to becoming 'China's Facebook,' but that 'in terms of media influence, it will be very difficult for Tencent Weibo to surpass Sina Weibo.'
The growth of social media in China comes even as the government has increased efforts to regulate Internet use. Over the past two years, an increasing number of overseas websites have been blocked in China for long periods of time, damping participation in ever more global social networks despite the legions of Chinese Internet users. Users around China have reported slower and less stable access to popular overseas websites such as Google Inc.'s Gmail, and researchers say it appears traffic to Google's servers is being limited. Chinese websites, including Sina, are required to police themselves to keep their government-issued operational licenses, a costly task involving dozens of employees who monitor the sites around the clock.
Although Sina is known for its heated discussions, at times over controversial issues such as local government corruption and soaring property prices, most talk on the site isn't political. When sensitive topics arise, the company can be creative in limiting conversation without cutting it off altogether -- for example, by blocking searches of sensitive keywords but not stopping people from publishing them on their own microblogs.
When asked if he was concerned a government crackdown might affect the outspoken nature of Weibo, Mr. Chao said that Sina had years of experience in dealing with content regulations while maintaining its websites and that he was confident the company could handle it.
Loretta Chao
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
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