Sina Weibo is already doing commercial heuristic

Absrtact: February 20, 2013, Sina released the fourth quarter of 2012 and the full year earnings. The financial performance of Sina Weibo has not been too much of a surprise: the fourth quarter was about $28.5 million trillion, earning 66 million dollars a year. Weibo has been searching since the second quarter of 2012

February 20, 2013, Sina released the fourth quarter of 2012 and the full year earnings. The financial performance of Sina Weibo has not been too much of a surprise: the fourth quarter was about $28.5 million trillion, earning 66 million dollars a year. Weibo has been seeking commercialization since the second quarter of 2012. In the first two quarters, the microblog income was 10 million U.S. dollars, 27.5 million dollars respectively. December 31, 2012, Sina's total investment in micro-blog has reached 280 million U.S. dollars. Sina Weibo 2012-year income absolute value and the chain growth figures, is not satisfactory.

Already doing commercial heuristic

Sina in 2012 years continued to the commercialization of micro-bo continuous attempts and efforts, the current micro-Bo commercial model of the main body along the micro-blog advertising and micro-blog value-added services direction. The transfer of micro-blogging to advertising is the most direct form of commercialization. Microblogging's current advertising style is not satisfactory, micro-blog ad revenue in the quarter of 21.3 million U.S. dollars, the annual advertising revenue of about 50 million U.S. dollars.

Starting in the third quarter, Sina Weibo began experimenting with new performance-based advertising systems promote feeds. This dynamically updated advertisement links the microblogging data to the advertising needs of advertising system companies. The content that the user publishes can be converted to the advertisement, and is distributed to the friend of the user. The Promote feed has brought a lot of revenue to Facebook, so Sina has high hopes that Sina has released its Promote Feed advertising system in the fourth quarter, which is expected to run in the first quarter of 2013.

Sina Weibo's value-added services include membership fees, microblogging game revenue, and Third-party applications. Micro-blogging value-added services revenue in the quarter of 7.2 million U.S. dollars, the chain growth of 65%. Although the chain looks good, its income base is small. Therefore, it is difficult to say how much revenue the microblog value-added services will bring in the future. In the third party, a large part of the income from the Sina Weibo attempt to service the electric business.

In the fourth quarter, Sina Weibo began to test the utility service. Sina Weibo and the millet mobile phone in the fourth quarter of cooperation, although Sina did not disclose the data, but it seems to be more satisfied with the cooperation. In an analyst conference call, Mr. Chao said that micro-bloggers could build a unique sales model that could be traded for the first available or specific product, through partnerships with third party e-business solutions. Relying on this, Sina Weibo has issued a payment system for commodity transactions.

Promotefeed so handy?

For the time being, promotefeed advertising and social networking will be the engine of microblogging commercialization, but promote feed ads will in some ways affect the user experience and may even lead to user lawsuits. What's more, Sina Weibo's membership is still increasing when Sina Weibo is just starting to commercialize. But Sina's active users in Sina Weibo stay time is declining trend, based on mobile internet App Store has a lot of mobile applications to choose from, users spend time on different applications, so that in Sina Weibo stay time reduced, the trend of decline is also inevitable.

At the same time, Sina is also facing the mobile Internet new social rookie micro-letter competition. The impact of the mobile internet wave and micro-credit on Sina Weibo stickiness weakened, if the promote feed too much impact on the user experience, then more users will give up Sina Weibo or reduce the duration of micro-blog stay. Sina Weibo's social dominance will be shaken. It is clear that Sina executives are also more cautious, in the introduction of the cautious attitude, to minimize interference with the user experience. And it is expected that the first half of 2013 from Promotefeed ads will not get too much revenue share.

The difficulty of electricity quotient is not characteristic

Sina Weibo also wants a piece of the deal in the face of a raging electric dealer. 2012 has been out of the electric business Alibaba to take a stake in Sina Weibo, the two sides will be in the electricity Shang cooperation. With Alibaba to become and not, also affect Sina Weibo to enter the electricity business decision. Social networking is common for electric dealers, but success is rare. Sina hopes to build a trading platform, logistics and distribution outsourcing, a payment system, the goal is to collect some of the products available for sale in the microblog, such as the first listed products, a special sale and so on. And such a platform, and there is no unique characteristics of the electrical business, there is no stable molded product system to form a stable micro-BO shopping group, is basically a single single and without a stable revenue stream to maintain the operation of the platform, once an accident of the electric trader trading negative events enough to make it down.

Self-help promotefeed advertising is still the smoke and mirrors, a slight carelessness is a double-edged sword, micro-bo electric business is not a stable way to obtain cash flow. The 2013-year commercialization of Sina Weibo still appears to be faltering.

What can Xu Liangje offer?

In the two days, Sina announced a micro-blog personnel appointment: Xu Liangje will join the Sina Weibo as the joint president. Xu Liangje joined Sina as the world's vice-president, and his resume shows that he has a technical background. Undoubtedly, Xu Liangje to join Sina Weibo will bring positive energy to Sina, also will bring to Sina Weibo new changes and new culture.

Sina Weibo currently the most important issue is the mobile Internet, commercialization issues, as a technical background of the Xu Liangje may be to the micro-blog and even the entire Sina mobile internet can play a role, to some extent to avoid Sina in the mobile internet marginalization. And Sina Weibo commercialization first is the commercial problem, then is the technical question. Of course, perhaps Xu Liangje relies on its own technical power to make Sina Weibo more commercially available, but the commercialization of Sina Weibo requires a sharper business acumen.