Weibo: Facebook’s New Shop, Baidu’s New Gadget, Xue Manzi’s Drivel

This week’s tech round-up from the microblogging realm is a flurry of interesting but unrelated news bits, as the world gets back to work following the end of the summer holidays. Leading the list is the latest effort by Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) to find a backdoor into China, which comes in the form of a new Weibo account that isn’t verified but has at least one tech executive spreading the word and encouraging people to follow the page.

Meantime, online search leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) generated some microblogging buzz when it unveiled an unusual pair of high-tech chopsticks in Beijing. Last but not least there’s Xue Manzi, a tech investor also known as Charles Xue, who was busy hyping a tech start-up on his microblog. Xue is a man I came to dislike over the years for his largely empty talk, even as he built up a base of more than 10 million followers on Weibo (Nasdaq: WB). But then he got sent to prison for becoming too influential and political, making me more sympathetic, before his release in April and quick return to vacuous blogging.

We’ll kick off this back-to-school tech chatter column with the most intriguing item from my list, namely the mysterious appearance of a Weibo account purporting to be operated by Facebook. Most techies know that Facebook is blocked in China, even though the company has said repeatedly that it wants to enter the market. It is currently moving in that direction, and this year began looking for office space in Beijing to sell advertising to Chinese clients. (previous post)

The appearance of this intriguing new Facebook site was exposed in a microblog post from Lu Jiansheng, the Hong Kong chief for Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC (Taipei: 2498). Lu doesn’t say much, except to include a link to the account and to urge people to follow it. (microblog post)

I’ve had a look myself, and there’s no “V” on the account, which means its authenticity hasn’t been verified by Weibo. The site also has a reliability rating of “1”, the lowest rating that is automatically assigned to all new accounts. This account is indeed quite new, and has only been posting since August 31. And yet despite that newness, it already has an impressive 130,000 followers. The postings on the account also aren’t too exciting, totaling only 5 to date when I checked it out. But if it’s authentic and receives the coveted “V” rating, it could become an interesting window onto what Facebook is planning for China.

Next let’s move to the gadget realm, where Baidu’s new high-tech chopsticks were getting attention from the blogging account of technology website 36kr.com. The chopsticks, which were unveiled last week, have several sensors in them that can detect things like the quality and volume of oil, salt and water in a dish, as well as the temperature and pH. (microblog post)

36kr.com’s post doesn’t give any of its own evaluation of the product, probably because Baidu hasn’t given any to users yet. The idea sounds interesting in concept, especially in a place like China where food safety scandals appear weekly. I have to credit Baidu with creating an innovative idea that the market is likely to embrace at least initially, though reliability and ease of use will ultimately determine the product’s success.

Finally we’ll turn our attention to Xue Manzi, a Chinese-born naturalized US citizen who has become a controversial figure for techies over the past year. Many people who know the man say he’s quite generous with his time and money, and has helped to nurture many Chinese tech start-ups. He was one of the earlier people to open an account on Weibo after the service’s launch, and quickly built up his massive follower base that now totals nearly 11.5 million.

Xue’s talk was originally mostly musings on the tech industry with a focus on start-ups, but then gradually became his own personal soap box for talk that was sometimes tech-related but increasingly political. His growing influence attracted Beijing’s attention, and he was arrested in September last year after police “discovered” him associating with prostitutes. (previous post)

He was finally released in April this year, and has since returned to microblogging of the harmless variety, including his recent focus on charitable organizations. Most of his latest posts are simple re-postings from other people, but he made a relatively rare original post last week with some hype for a start-up called Shequ001. The site is basically an online grocery store that allows people to order and get quick delivery of food products over the Internet. (microblog post)

I won’t repeat his hype here, which reads more like an advertisement and hints that Xue is probably one of the company’s backers. On the one hand, I can’t blame Xue for wanting to avoid controversy after his recent jail experience. But on the other hand, I honestly can’t see people taking him seriously or following his microblog for too much longer if he continues to post this kind of vacuous material on his page.