Sina Gets Serious on SNS With New “Blogging Light” 新浪推出轻博客大力进军社交网络业务

By newsdoug on July 19, 2011

It’s official: Less than two months after Chinese media first carried reports of a new Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) service that I said looked suspiciously like a Facebook-type SNS product (previous post), China’s most popular Web portal has announced the public beta testing launch of the new product, called Boke Qing in Chinese, or Blogging Light. (Chinese article) Sina’s own description of the new service, which ingeniously allows users to interlink new accounts with their existing accounts on its wildly popular Twitter-like Weibo product, says that Qing is designed to complement Weibo by providing users with the ability to post longer messages, as well as photos and other multimedia offerings. Does this sound a bit like Facebook? The beta site at qing.weibo.com says the service already has about 700,000 users, though I’ve no doubt that is probably a bit inflated. Still, considering Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) early success with its new SNS product, Google Plus, despite being years behind Facebook, I’d say this new Qing product, which smartly draws on Weibo’s huge user base, stands a strong chance of success and could quickly pose a major challenge to industry leaders Renren (NYSE: RENN) and Kaixin, as well as SNS products being developed by established net giants like Tencent (HKEx: 700). From a broader perspective, Qing will undoubtedly be coupled with Weibo into a single SNS business unit at Sina, which is hoping to quickly build up the company for a blockbuster IPO in the next two to three years. It’s still too early to say if Qing will be able to make big headway in the market, but I would say the chances are good that it could quickly catch up with and possibly even overtake Renren or Kaixin in the next couple of years.

Bottom line: Sina’s beta launch of a new SNS product, Qing, is the latest move to leverage its popular Weibo service, which could soon pose a challenge to SNS leaders Renren and Kaixin.

媒体一个多月前首次报导称，新浪<SINA.O>推出了轻博客，我当时说过，这项新服务看似像Facebook一类的社交网产品。新浪周一正式宣布启动轻博客公测版本。用户可使用新浪微博账户直接登录轻博客，两款产品已实现相互联通，据新浪描述称，轻博客是微博的补充，可以发布长文和组图，以及其他多媒体功能。这听起来是不是有点像Facebook？轻博客（qing.weibo.com）测试版网页称，该服务已拥有约70万名用户，我怀疑这可能有点言过其实。但鉴於谷歌<GOOG.O>在社交领域多年落後Facebook，而其新推出的社交产品Google Plus仍初获成功，我敢说，由於聪明地利用了新浪微博庞大用户群的优势，因此轻博客的成功机率很大，并且可能很快会对人人网<RENN.N>、开心网以及正研发社交产品的腾讯<0700.HK>等构成较大威胁。更宏观地看，轻博客无疑将与微博联手，成为新浪独立的社交网业务，在未来两到三年进行大规模首次公开募股（IPO）。现在谈轻博客是否能在该市场取得重大进展还为时过早，但我认为，轻博客未来一两年迅速赶上、甚至超越人人网和开心网的机率较大。

一句话：新浪启动最新社交产品轻博客公测版，是利用新浪微博杠杆效应的最新举措，可能很快会对人人网和开心网构成挑战。