Sina will accelerate the pace of monetization of micro-blogging this year

Absrtact: With the number of Sina Weibo users climbing, the commercialization of micro-blogging process again on the table. Yesterday (February 28), Sina's chief executive and President Charles Chao disclosed a 2012-year profit path on the earnings call, claiming that Sina will accelerate the pace of monetization of microblogs this year

With the number of Sina Weibo users climbing, the commercialization of micro-blogging process again on the table.

Yesterday (February 28), Sina's chief executive and President Charles Chao disclosed a 2012-year profit path on the earnings call, claiming that Sina will accelerate the pace of microfinance this year and that its main revenue will come from the microblogging platform itself.

The microblog monetization process comes from Sina's huge investment and operating cost pressures. "Daily economic News" notes that In 2011, Sina accounted for a net loss of USD 302.1 million, including a total of 350.4 million dollars in Non-cash depreciation, of which USD 68.9 million was linked to the depreciation of the mobile value-added business goodwill, and the remaining 281.5 million dollars were mainly related to the non-temporary devaluation of the investment of China Real Estate Information Group and Mai Lam Co.

In fact, compared with Sohu, NetEase, Sina Weibo has not been profitable before, but also rely more on advertising revenue. Just before, Sohu, NetEase all announced 2011 year earnings report, Sohu 2011 annual revenue 5.36 billion yuan, increase 39% than 2010, which game and advertising equal, sogou performance growth eye-catching, the annual revenue nearly 400 million yuan, than 2010 increase 238%. NetEase 2011 total income of 7.5 billion yuan, of which the game business total income of 6.6 billion yuan, accounting for 88% of total income, revenue than 2010 increase of 26%.

This also means that Sina urgently needs to accelerate the process of commercialization of microblogs.

According to Chao, Sina this year in micro-blogging cost about 160 million U.S. dollars, according to Sina's plan, the second quarter of this year launched a new advertising system based on user information and interest, introducing new Enterprise Weibo, laying the groundwork for future profits by providing services to businesses; and online mobile client advertising system. In addition, the second half of Sina gaming platform will also provide fee-based services.

In fact, as early as last November at the micro-blogging games Developers Forum, Sina said that the micro-game to the June 8, 2012 through the microblogging platform Game Center operations to adopt a 0-divided principle, and this is also interpreted as Sina after this will take a toll model signal. Sina Weibo registered more than 300 million, according to data provided by Sina.

"We were on the game platform last year, but most of the services are free and we don't share revenue with game developers, but this free period will end in June this year and the gaming platform will start charging for the second half." "said Chao.

Investor attention also makes Sina Weibo's monetization pressure becomes very big, but, monetization perhaps is a double-edged sword, once Sina massively monetization, on the one hand will bring the new revenue for Sina, on the other hand may affect the user experience, Sina needs to balance these two aspects question.