How long can the red flag of Weibo float?

2013, for Sina Weibo is a challenging year, about the decline of micro-blogging one after another: micro-blog activity declined, micro-blog users significantly reduced, micro-trust users to break through the 500 million serious impact of micro-bo, Big V was caught/banned speech ... Even the author has received several job resumes from Sina Weibo employees, who are planning to see what opportunities they have outside. Everyone is concerned about the same question: how long can the red flag of Weibo float?

As an active user of Twitter, my judgment is that Sina Weibo, as a red flag in China's new media, will also fly against the wind and be as popular as Twitter when landing on Nasdaq. My main judgment is based on:

The rapid development of micro-credit did give Sina Weibo a big impact, but at the same time it also hit the direct competitors of Sina Weibo.

Micro-letter Circle of friends to a large extent to replace Tencent Weibo, because the basis of these two products are QQ chain of relations. If we have the opportunity to compare the background data of Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, the user activity data of Sina Weibo may drop a lot, but Tencent Weibo data must be more miserable. Tencent Weibo was originally an important piece of Tencent to contain Sina, Sina Weibo made mistakes, Tencent Weibo may be the opportunity to overtake the superior. But the emergence of micro-letter, so that Tencent Weibo completely lost the challenge of Sina Weibo opportunities, "kill 800, the loss of 1000", micro-letter shot manslaughter of their own brother Tencent Weibo, but the consolidation of Sina Weibo in China's monopoly position. In addition, the micro-trust in the circle of friends, many of the original content Sina Weibo.

Information controls are actually good for Sina Weibo, which is essentially a beneficiary.

A few years ago, a senior executive of Tencent and I visited a Chinese web site that was billed as the largest overseas Chinese website, with a wide variety of gossip news, including the gossip of some leaders and children, that is difficult to distinguish. The owner of the website is a businessman from Taiwan, when he saw us, he smiled and said: "We can develop to this day, to thank the country, thank the party." We were amazed, puzzled, and asked why. "It is because of the information control in China that we have the space to live," he explained, "and we have content on the Internet that other Chinese portals do not have to attract overseas Chinese readers." If the information completely open, readers will run to Sina, Sohu, Tencent, NetEase, we have lost the difference, it is finished. Mainland China once blocked our website, then let go, but we actively blocked IP access from mainland China. "This site has a yearly income of millions of dollars.

The same is true of Sina Weibo. Although some big V was caught, affecting the microblogging activity, but the existence of such regulation, in essence, in line with Sina's core interests. Weibo allows each user to have their own microphone, can directly publish, share and disseminate information, to express their own voice. With the popularity of smartphones, it is becoming more and more convenient to publish microblogs, making it increasingly difficult to control information. Sina has accumulated many years of experience in media operation, and is good at dealing with relevant departments, and is good at playing the ball. This flexible information regulation has led to the emergence of many exclusive, otherwise media-free content on Sina Weibo, which attracts a large number of users. By comparing Twitter with Sina Weibo, Twitter has done a better job of product experience, and Sina Weibo has often been ridiculed and criticized by insiders. Why does Twitter have to work products? Because it has no choice, the United States has no information control, news reporting is free, Twitter is very difficult to surpass traditional media in content and must do well. Sina Weibo is different, as long as there is information control, Weibo may have been the case of exclusive disclosure. Imagine, if one day, the news is completely transparent, the media can be fully free to report, why do we have to come to Sina Weibo? So, at this point, Sina Weibo is actually the beneficiary of information control.

Sina Weibo offers a platform for people and celebrities to touch. Most people want to get Kai-fu Lee Teacher, Ma Yun, Pan Shiyi, Ren Zhiqiang, Chen Yao, Faye Wong, such as the micro-signal is very difficult, but in micro-blog can directly see their latest comments, but also can comment forwarding, this is a unique user experience. Traditional media have also forwarded celebrities ' comments on Sina Weibo, but they are already second-hand materials for readers. I remember a friend of Silicon Valley said to me, on the Internet, people are content. As long as Sina Weibo tightly captures a group of celebrities, it will continue to produce original content. Sina Weibo this celebrity platform has a certain monopoly.

Sina Weibo has become a reader platform that has been admired by traditional media. Although Weibo has a variety of thorny issues, but the traditional media to face more problems, the decline of the paper media has been unstoppable, the press has fallen into a collective hesitation, we have to find answers and solutions, but the future of traditional media where, no one knows. At present, most of China's influential media are on Sina Weibo on the official micro-blog, including the People's Daily, the People's Daily Review department also established a new media review room, which is very rare in the national media, "in the face of new media challenges, to take the initiative to occupy the network of public opinion positions." An editor in the People's Daily said in an interview. Sina Weibo as a banner of China's new media, the future development of unlimited imagination space, this reader platform also has a certain monopoly.

The outlook for Sina Weibo's IPO in the US. Sina Weibo is a coveted quality asset, online rumors will be on the Nasdaq in the United States this year, I believe the investors will certainly be sought after. Twitter's IPO was priced at $26 trillion, and now shares are up 64 dollars, up 246%. By the end of January 31, 2014, Twitter's market capitalisation was as high as $35 billion, compared with Tesla Motors, an electric car company, with only $22.2 billion trillion. Sina Weibo now does face many problems, such as the challenges of micro-letters, the decline in activity and so on. In the course of the future listing of Sina Weibo, investors will certainly continue to torture these issues. This could force Sina's management to cut the price of Weibo listings and set aside future space for investors to benefit. Therefore, Sina Weibo listed after a certain fire.

Weibo also has time to deal with the challenge of micro-letters. Micro-letter is Sina Weibo's most powerful competitor, the micro-credit circle of Friends is the de facto mobile phone version of China's Facebook, if the micro-letter to become the entrance of information reading, Sina Weibo is a very scary thing. Facebook recently announced an increase in the percentage of news content in the user News feed stream. Micro-trust will certainly work in this direction in the future. However, micro-letter has become Tencent's super application on mobile Internet, carrying Tencent too many expectations, pony and Zhangxiaolong in the micro-media properties of the issue will be cautious, to prevent stepping on the information control of the minefield, must not make mistakes. Sina Weibo still has some time to optimize the product, enhance the user experience, and deal with the challenge of micro-letter. In addition, Facebook and Twitter are developing well, suggesting that the two social products are not a life-and-death relationship. Sina Weibo and micro-letters can also be jointly developed in mutual competition.

"PostScript" A friend asked you is a headhunter, for Sina exercise so suspicious, you are not secretly bought Sina stock, here when black mouth. I hereby declare that I have no direct or indirect ownership of the shares of Sina and affiliated companies. As an HR and headhunter, must be concerned about the industry, companies and products, to in-depth study of business knowledge, develop their own independent judgment and analysis capabilities, so as to better communicate with customers in order to give candidates to recommend more suitable job opportunities.