Sina's Charles Chao: Sina can revolutionize itself in order to strengthen Weibo.

Weibo Info Network reprinted from iResearch Network

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Sina's financial report shows: the total number of registered users of Sina Weibo has exceeded 100 million. Sina CEO Charles Chao said on March 1st while announcing the Q4 2010 financial results that entering 2011, we plan to make Weibo the core of Sina’s new media growth strategy, increasing investment to further enhance our leading position in the social media field and make Sina the best network platform deeply rooted in social networks and mobile internet.

When discussing competition, Charles Chao stated that the entry of competitors would inevitably increase Sina's costs and cause it to lose part of its market share. However, Chao also believed that Sina has the advantage of being a pioneer in the microblogging domain along with user advantages, which can be used to enhance barriers against competition with peers. Our Weibo user growth is endogenous growth, compared to the growth achieved by competitors through user migration, ours has a longer life span, said Chao.

Talking about the future, Weibo is the core of all Sina business developments.

After launching the Weibo service in August 2009, Sina became the leading company in China's Weibo industry.

In September 2010, Sina partnered strategically with MSN to integrate social networking with instant messaging. On March 2nd, 2011, some Sina Weibo users found that the Sina Weibo interface had added IM (Instant Messaging) functions such as online display and video chat. According to Sina, the IM function of Sina Weibo has been basically developed and is currently in the testing phase.

Regarding this, Chao did not respond directly. He indicated that the open platform of Sina Weibo could cooperate with all potential objects in the Internet industry, with the goal of continuing to expand its user base.

According to Credit Suisse's latest investment report, as of the end of January this year, the total number of followers of the top 100 users ranked by the number of followers was 198.2 million, equivalent to 68% of Twitter, and it is expected to surpass Twitter in the second half of the year.

Through various methods such as transferring users, competitors may achieve rapid growth in user scale in the short term. Chao said, but our goal is also to continue to achieve rapid growth in user scale. Chao said that Sina has already made Weibo the core of all future business developments. He even stated that this is a trend, and for this trend, Sina could revolutionize itself if necessary.

Face-to-face with Charles Chao

A scale barrier has been formed

Reporter: What are the advantages of Sina doing Weibo?

Chao: First, based on portals and blogs, Sina Weibo has attracted the most influential figures, forming a scale barrier. Second, Sina Weibo has formed a strong social relationship, with much higher loyalty than users of some peers who rely on bundling or transferring users, and with much stronger vitality.

Reporter: When some companies use the Weibo platform for advertising, do you think they should pay?

Chao: It is reasonable for companies to pay Sina. Sina provides this platform and incurs significant costs in product development and service provision. Allowing contributors to receive corresponding profit distribution is the most important thing.

Reporter: You once said that Weibo allows users to further become a media platform, and at the same time, Weibo has a disruptive impact on the media soft environment, changing the way media is used and its form. Is that true? Why?

Chao: By lowering the participation threshold and allowing Weibo users to continuously participate and share, as well as using technical means to make the most valuable content easier to find, I expect that a complete new platform will emerge, enabling information dissemination to be more effective.

Reporter's Notes:

When I registered for Weibo in the winter of 2009, I didn't realize how this simple registration would affect my life and work. Ten months later, I learned that the number of registered users on Sina Weibo reached 50 million, and four months later, this number rose to 100 million. Friends around me regard not posting on Weibo as a symbol of being out of touch. Charles Chao silently changed our lives. Although there is no timetable for when Weibo will bring in the first pot of gold for Chao, who can ignore its existence? Weibo has completely overturned traditional information dissemination through public observation. For this point alone, let's pay tribute to Charles Chao!

Profile:

Charles Chao, born in July 1969 in Shanghai. Graduated from the Journalism Department of Fudan University, and obtained a Master's degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a Master's degree in Finance from the Business Management School of the University of Texas at Austin. On May 10th, 2006, he became the CEO of Sina. On September 28th, 2009, Sina announced that its management team led by CEO Charles Chao purchased approximately 5.6 million ordinary shares of Sina for about $180 million, becoming the largest shareholder of Sina.

Sina has made Weibo the core of all future business developments. For this trend, Sina can revolutionize itself if necessary. Charles Chao