Web layout look: What Sina Weibo is suffering

Recently, on Sina CEO Cao Chao in the internal mail to employees to do a series of adjustments to the personnel structure of the matter can be seen, Chao is the Sina business is divided into two major sections: Portals and micro-blog.

Weibo is undoubtedly a very important area for Sina. Sina Weibo initially targeted the media and attracted a large number of users, and then shifted to social attributes while taking into account media attributes.

Regardless of media attributes or social attributes, microblogging content (text, pictures, video, etc.) is always the core element of Weibo.

Organization Plus v certification (that is, blue V) account number of the home page layout as shown above. You can see that the home page is divided into three parts, the right and left sides of the small proportion, while the micro-blog content in the middle of the screen, emphasizing its importance, but also in line with the most comfortable to the user's gaze, in a direct and pure way to deliver content to the user. This is also the Sina Weibo media attributes of the embodiment-to convey content as the primary task.

This is the home page screenshot of the No V personal account. You can see that the home page is only divided into the left and right parts, and the proportion of the two parts is small. Microblogging content on the left rather than the middle, which essentially caused users to read, because the left side of the screen is not the most comfortable for users to stay in the interval, while the right side of the information also caused by visual interference, and weakened the micro-blog Content-Micro-bo core elements.

But Sina did so for a reason. On the right-hand side of the home page are "gift giving", "shared attention", "I'm concerned about him", "his fans are concerned" and "micro-maps", which are all promoting social networking, in other words, to strengthen social attributes.

Therefore, two different layouts of Sina Weibo reflect the two attributes of the product: media, social.

The problem is, those individuals plus v certification (that is, yellow v) User's home page layout is divided into about two parts, the point of emphasis on social networking is that the average user is looking at these yellow plus V (for the sake of illustration, is this the case of a big fan over 100,000) really a social need?

Obviously not. True socializing should be two-way. Although the individual micro-broad also sometimes interacts with fans, but also only in the rare and simple interaction, more fans are one-way to receive large microblogging content, which may be the latter release of the news, the commentary, may also be the presentation of their daily life. "Large content, fans receive information", which is already another form of media, or can be called "from the media."

So in my opinion, it is wrong for Sina Weibo to use the same format for the layout of the home page and a large number of ordinary users. Sina doesn't really understand the social and media needs of the average user.

The initial media positioning of Sina Weibo has brought a large number of users, news on its platform to appear fast, spread fast, this has surpassed the traditional portal site. But in the long run, just as the media Sina Weibo is unable to retain users. Just like "The life of Weibo portal", sooner or later there will be a more attractive media platform. Socializing and socializing with acquaintances can actually lead to stickiness and retention of users.

Therefore, the gradual strengthening of the "media + social" positioning of Sina Weibo in the right direction, but did not seem to step on the right path.

The opportunity to explore Sina Weibo is also declining, and the emergence of micro-letters to the bright future of Sina Weibo overshadowed. Chao has said that micro-letters are indeed squeezing users ' time on Weibo.

Interestingly, the development of micro-credit is just the opposite of Sina Weibo. The former relies on social networking to build up a large number of users, and the introduction of public accounts to some extent strengthen its media properties.

Sina earnings, the third quarter of this year, net profit of only 9.9 million U.S. dollars, down 70%, micro-Bo's high cost is the main reason for the ugly results.

The pressure of capital is giving Sina Weibo a faster pace of profitability, but a departure from user demand will ultimately make it impossible to commercialize expectations.