钱学森家里:西方人对“围脖”的评价：为什么要加入中国最大的社交网络？

Putting aside the Chinese government’s little anxieties about the Internet, social networking is huge in China, and most of it centers around the website Weibo.com. With more than 140 million users, Weibo (which means microblogging) beats RenRen, Douban, Kaixin and untold numbers of Facebook knockoffs as China’s preeminent social media site. It recently announced plans to launch an English interface this summer, and its English iPhone app has already turned some Westerners into converts.

       抛开政府对网络的些许忧虑不谈，社交网站在中国确实发展迅速，现在，绝大多数的网民热衷于玩“围脖”。依托1.4亿用户，新浪微博打败了人人，豆瓣，开心网以及更多不知名的Facebook模仿版成为中国最具优势的社交化媒体网站。最近新浪微博还宣布，计划在今夏发布英文版界面，而它为iPhone提供的英文版应用也已经吸引了一批西方用户投怀送抱。

Launched in 2009, the micro-blogging service is owned by Chinese interweb behemoth Sina Corp, which happens to be the same company that partnered with Google before their deals famously floundered (cf those anxieties) and Google hightailed out of China (before coming back of course).

      2009年，中国互联网巨头新浪网首先运营微博应用，该公司曾是谷歌退出中国之前的合作伙伴，后因为某些忧虑，双方交易在喧嚣中搁浅。

Weibo is often described as a Facebook-Twitter hybrid, but anyone who takes a closer look can easily see that it’s a different beast entirely. Actually, I would argue Weibo is better than both. Here’s a breakdown of its standout features—some of which Google Plus has already included, and others that I’d love to see incorporated soon.

      微博通常被描述为Facebook和Twitter的结合版，但是细心观察的人很容易发现它是一种完全不同的“生物”。事实上，我恐怕得说微博比二者都好。以下分类是微博一些突出的产品特征，一些功能Google+（谷歌社交服务项目）已经包括，其他的相信很快也会被谷歌借鉴。

Inline Video and Pictures

内置视频和图片

Instead of having to post shortened links that direct traffic to an external site, multimedia content is integrated directly into the website’s interface, so that no one ever has to leave the Weibo ecosystem. Celebrities and members of the media elite—who have a huge presence on this site—frequently upload content straight to Weibo for their follower-fans to engage with. Comments are also threaded together vertically, like on Facebook, so that a single image can generate a discussion with hundreds of responses. No messy @mentions or re-tweeting; everything stays in one place.

      无需再键入引向其他外部站点的简短连接，跨媒介内容被直接整合在微博的界面，这样就没有人需要离开微博的互动系统。名人和大量的媒介精英人士，作为微博最有影响力的用户，频繁的直接上传内容到微博上和粉丝交流。像在Facebook中一样，所有的评论都在一起垂直排列，仅仅一张图片就能汇聚成百的回应，无需凌乱的复制别人的发言再予以回应，所有内容都清晰的列在一起。

One of those Loyalty / Rewards Systems

忠诚度奖励机制

Users who comment the most frequently on new posts get a “Sofa Collector” badge. Those who comment the most number of times on a single post get a “Weibo Controller” badge. By rewarding recurrent contributors, Weibo encourages a high level of interactivity from high-profile regulars. Even better, badges “level up” over time like in RPG games; many users also have cartoon-like avatars to represent their online presence. Think of it as social networking plus Pokemon. Sounds awesome to me.

      在新内容中评论最频繁的用户将获得一个“沙发控”勋章，一段时间内在同一内容中发布评论最多的人将获得“微博控”勋章。通过不断的奖励互动的参与者，微博在活跃用户中激起了相当高的参与度。勋章随着时间“升级”的特征使得它就像一个RPG（角色扮演）游戏，很多用户甚至拥有卡通化的图标来代表他们的在线形象。想象一下社交化网站加上宠物小精灵，听起来真的非常棒。

Logging into Weibo takes users to “Weibo Square,” a portal filled with endless possible detours, including the hot topics of the day, most popular tweets, and highlighted celebrity users. These updates expand beyond one’s personal networks and give an insight into where the community’s attention is being directed. A separate News Hub provides breaking world and entertainment news coverage.

板块 

      用户登录后被带到“微博广场”，这是一个含有无尽可能的入口，包括当日的最热话题，最受欢迎的草根和最受关注的名人。这些更新大大超越了个人的社交网络，带给人对当前社会关注风向的深刻洞察。另外还提供一些分散的世界新闻和娱乐报道。

Foods

在线订餐

Okay, this section should technically be labeled “e-commerce,” but I got too excited over the prospect of being able to order food online through a social networking site. Weibo allows companies to customize their own pages, which look vastly different from a regular user’s, and sell goods through these specialized mini-sites. Not only can I order a pizza while chatting with a friend, textbooks, music and a variety of other goods can also be delivered straight to my door. The ability to group-buy with friends gives users discounts and deals.

      是的，这个部分在技术上应该贴上“电子商务”的标签，但是能够通过一个社交网站在线订餐的期待太让人动心了。微博允许公司开通和普通用户完全不同的“企业版”页面，并通过这些专业化的迷你站点销售产品，因此，不仅披萨可以在和朋友聊天时订购，书籍、唱片以及大量的其他商品都可以直接送到门口。而且和朋友一起团购还能给用户交易折扣。

Probably the best part about Weibo is its all-encompassing-ness. It combines so many features (IM, social networking, e-commerce, videos, etc) that no one has to jump out of Weibo-world to access other content. (Obviously, this could be a big discredit for those wary of monopoly.) It also heavily promotes third-party apps, organizes events based on cities and not just friends, and features the Google Hangout-like, multi-person video-conferencing tool. All these options can make navigating Weibo confusing, but fortunately content is organized neatly into sub-categories like “music,” “video,” “pictures,” and “original” – the latter being the comments coming from friends in your network.

 总体    

       也许微博最大的优点是其包含一切的特性：即时聊天，社交网络，电子商务，视频等等。融合了如此多的功能，任何内容的访问都无需离开微博的世界。（显然，这对于别的垄断）。它也极大的促进了第三方应用的发展。和朋友交流，组织同城活动，类似Google Hangout功能的多人视频开会工具。复杂的选择让航行中的微博显得让人迷惑，幸运的是这些内容被整齐的分成诸如原创，图片，音乐，视频，这样的子栏目，下面个人页面里的友人评论。

It’s neat, and apparently a staggering 90% of China’s Internet users agree. Of course, success in China doesn’t mean much to the Twittering classes in the West (and given the way they treat certain Tweeters over there, who can blame them). But keep an eye on your news feed for that Weibo English version. Google and Facebook are.

      显然的高达90%的用户赞成这种整洁。当然，在中国的成功并不意味着它能成为像西方Twitter一样的网站（考虑那里对待Twitter的方式，这不是他们的责任）。但是保持对微博英文版本的关注吧，谷歌和Facebook已经这样做了。

_________编译 by  sasa