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This is a series of articles published by Kai Fu Lee. I did the translation after graduation from university in summer to learn more about the technology trend and practise my translation skill.

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##Article

Translation of Kaifu Lee’s post on LinkedIn - Weibo: the Most Powerful Media in China

李开复LinkedIn文章翻译之十二 – 微博：中国最强有力的媒体

(Part of Chinese innovation series, to share innovative companies and products in China)

（中国创新系列文章之一，该系列文章是为了特写中国的创新人物和产品。）

While Twitter was generally regarded as Jack Dorsey’s baby, Sina Weibo (the “Chinese Twitter”) is more of a whole-company effort led by Sina executive Peng Shaobin.

当推特逐渐被认作是杰克·多西的个人杰作时，新浪微博（中国的推特）更多的是在新浪执行经理彭少彬^[1]领导下的全公司努力的产物。

Twitter emphasizes its social elements, but Sina Weibo is undoubtedly the sharpest media ever seen in China. Twitter users have a 140-character limit, but Sina Weibo’s limit in Chinese is equivalent to 500 characters in English. This allows the writer to summarize a book, to debate each other preserving context, or to give the first-paragraph abstract of a late breaking news. Most top Twitter stars talk about what they’re doing and point to other sites, but Sina Weibo has become the portal for accessing news, gossip, and commentaries. I am convinced this simple difference makes Weibo a very different media than Twitter.

推特强调它的社交元素，但新浪微博毫无疑问是在中国见到的最尖锐的媒体。推特用户有140个字符的限制，但新浪微博的中文限制相当于英文中的500个字符。这能允许作者总结一本书，在保留上下文同时互相争论，或给出最近重大新闻的第一节摘要。绝大多数的推特明星说的都是他们在做什么，然后指向其他的站点，但新浪微博已经变成了获取新闻、留言和评论的入口。我很确信这个简单的区别使微博成为一个相对推特来说非常不同的媒体。

In China, the traditional media is regulated by the government, and on many issues there is only one viewpoint. Most Weibo also provides access to alternative viewpoints not expressible in traditional media. This can generate debate and improve critical thinking skills of the netizens. One might say that Weibo is the first modern media in China.

在中国，传统媒体受到ZF的管制，对很多问题都只有一个观点。大多数微博还提供其他在传统媒体上无法表达的观点。这能产生争论并提高网民的批判性思维能力。有的人也许会说微博是中国的第一个现代媒体。

This “media DNA” came from Sina’s dozen years as China’s leading media portal website and BSP (blog service platform). The 1000 editors and writers were always required to keep their mobile phones on 24x7, and thus were always ears-to-ground, and often able to get breaking news. After Weibo emerged, these 1000 people got a new KPI: to invite the people they used to interview to come to Weibo and speak for themselves, and to teach them how to tweet (or should I say “weib”?). From day one, Sina realized that the news they cover are great material to become the discussion topics on its Weibo. This solved the information inadequacy problem in the early days of Twitter.

这种“媒体基因”来自新浪多年来作为中国的领先媒体门户和博客服务平台。1000位编辑和写手一直被要求保持手机全天候开机，导致他们一直非常敏锐，总能得到爆炸新闻。微博出现后，这一千个人得到了一个新的绩效指标：邀请他们以前采访过的人到微博来发表自己的意见，并教他们如何发推（或者我该说“发微”？）。从第一天起，新浪就意识到他们报道的新闻是变成它微博上讨论话题的绝佳素材。这解决了推特初期的信息不足问题。

While Twitter (and Jack Dorsey) deserve praise for the new idea and the simple design behind Twitter, Sina Weibo has become a more fun product ready for the masses. Its early incorporation of video, music, and photos not only made the content fun, but also allowed it to usurp some of the capabilities of Instagram and Tumblr. Also, rather than using RT, //, and other geeky codes, Weibo has intuitive nested comments and discussions. This satisfies the Chinese users expectation and desire to comment.

当推特公司（和杰克·多西）值得因推特背后新颖的创意和简介的设计受到称赞时，新浪微博已成为了为大众准备的一个更有趣的产品。它对视频、音乐和照片早早的并入不仅使内容有趣，还允许它侵蚀Instagram和Tumblr的部分功能。还有，取消了使用RT^[2]，双斜杠以及其他很极客的符号，微博有很直观的内嵌评论和讨论。这满足了中国用户的期望和评论欲望。

Is Weibo innovative? While each feature may be a small improvement over Twitter, in aggregate, it has become a different kind of media because of the aggregate combination of the features (and because of the cultural and environmental differences). Sina Weibo is a more intuitive and fun product. I have heard that Twitter has been studying Sina Weibo for a while, and Twitter’s new version included some of Sina’s features. So yes I would call Weibo innovative.

微博创新吗？虽然每个特色可能只是相对推特来说一个小小的改进，但从总体来说，基于这些特色集合后的组合（也因为文化上和环境上的不同），它已经成为一种不同的媒体。新浪微博是个更直观有趣的产品。我听说推特已经研究了一段时间新浪微博，并且新版本的推特包括了一些新浪的特色。所以我会说微博是创新的。

I write every day on Sina Weibo, and have amassed 17 million followers on it (I also have a comparable number on Tencent Weibo). It has become a powerful vehicle for me to share my ideas, thoughts, comments, trends. A decade ago, if I got recognized on the street, it would be because I appeared in some TV show. Five years ago, it would have been because of my books. But today, it’s always because of Weibo.

我每天都在新浪微博上写作，并且已经在上面积累了一千七百万的粉丝（我在腾讯微博上也有相当数量的粉丝）。它已经成为我分享我的观点，想法，评论和趋势的一个强有力的工具。十多年前，如果我在路上被人认出来，很可能是因为我在某个电视节目上出现过。五年前，很可能是因为我的书。但今天，肯定都是因为微博。

As a result, Sina Weibo has 300 million users, and is changing China in many profound ways. (See my earlier piece on Sina for more information.) Check out my Sina Weibo!

结果是，新浪微博已经拥有三亿用户，并且正在很多意义深远的方面改变着中国。（请参阅我的前一篇关于新浪的文章获取更多信息。）看看我的新浪微博吧！

##Reference

1. 彭少彬，现任新浪公司副总裁、新浪微博事业部总经理。他自2007年12月起担任新浪桌面产品事业部总经理，主要负责新浪桌面应用软件产品业务；2009年7月至今担任新浪产品事业部总经理，全面负责公司整体产品战略规划和技术研发管理。2010年4月，新浪成立专门的微博事业部，全面负责微博产品的开发、运营及规划，原产品事业部总经理彭少彬兼任微博事业部总经理。
2. RT，转发。在推特里RT类似“转发”的意思，也称“回推”，Retweet是在推特专有的名辞，所谓Retweet就是“转载”(forward)的意思，当你发一句话，大家觉得很有道理，想帮忙传送出去，就可以发一封Retweet（亦可写成“rTwT”，或“RT”），这消息其实只是普通的Twitter消息，前面加上“RT”两字即可，你的跟随者会自动看到你“转寄”的这个消息，并和你生成对话。