Ya’an Quake Adds Responsibility to Frivolous SNS
The Ya’an earthquake now already 2 weeks ago has cast an interesting new spotlight on China’s vibrant field of social networking services (SNS), showing a different side to these sites that are largely seen as little more than frivolous, time-wasting toys. As a frequent user of Chinese sites like Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo, Tencent (HKEx: 700) WeChat and Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), I can personally testify that I mostly use these sites to fill up idle time at home or on the subway, often when I’m trying to procrastinate or am just feeling bored. But these sites are suddenly earning new praise as a critical communication tool during the Ya’an earthquake, arguably the first major global disaster since SNS services began their meteoric rise less than a decade ago. As someone who has lived through a major disaster, I can personally testify to the challenges of maintaining communications after such big catastrphes. I was living in Los Angeles in 1994 when a major earthquake struck on the morning of January 17, killing 57 people dead and caused a record $20 billion in damage. One of my most vivid memories of that time was the impossibility of making telephone calls for about the first 48 hours after the earthquake. Most of the time it was impossible to even dial a phone number, since all the lines into and out of Los Angeles were being used by other callers.
Damage to phone lines wasn’t the biggest issue. Instead, the problem was the huge jump in the volume of callers, as people both inside and outside Los Angeles suddenly tried to contact their friends, family members and business associates. That huge increase in volume, which accompanies most disasters, often causes already damaged telecoms networks to become crippled for days until repairs take place and calling volume returns to more levels.
Let’s fast forward 20 years after the Los Angeles earthquake to Ya’an, when mobile phone service and the Internet have penetrated to even the most remote areas of China. But even most of these services were severely crippled after the earthquake, as mobile base stations and other networking equipment were damaged in some of the country’s most remote areas.
In that kind of an environment, SNS platforms like microblogging services from Sina and NetEase (Nasdaq: NTES), and Tencent’s WeChat mobile instant messaging service suddenly found themselves in the unusual position of becoming valuable communication tools. Unlike traditional voice services, these SNS services don’t require continuous connections to function. What’s more, messages can be transmitted seconds, minutes or even hours after being input by a user when network capacity becomes available. Also unlike traditional voice and SMS services, these SNS services allow users to communicate quickly and efficiently with large, targeted groups of thousands or even millions of friends or followers.
Sina says that just seconds after the earthquake struck early on Saturday morning, a research institute in Chengdu broadcast its first message over a Sina Weibo account reporting a strong tremor in Ya’an. (Chinese article) The first message from a Sina Weibo user in Ya’an followed just 2 minutes later, reporting “shaking chrysanthemums” (晃动的菊花) in the area. Sina says a staggering 64 million messages about the quake were sent over its Weibo network within the first 10 hours after it happened.
Other SNS sites like WeChat and Renren (NYSE: RENN) reported similar phenomena, with thousands and even millions of messages passing over their platforms within the first 24 hours of the earthquake. The big majority of these messages were most likely chatter from outside the worst affected areas, since networks in and around Ya’an were heavily damaged. But I have no doubt that people in the earthquake zone also used these services to get in touch with friends and family members to report on their own safety and the condition of their homes and local infrastructure like roads and water supplies. Government organizations also undoubtedly used such services to issue updated information on things like where to go for assistance, and cautionary words on the likelihood of aftershocks and mudslides.
I wouldn’t be completely honest if I didn’t express my slightly cynical view that this outpouring of praise is somewhat self serving by both service providers and the government, showing people how these services have some social value and aren’t just time-wasting tools. WeChat in particular has been locked in a recent battle with China Mobile, which accuses the service of getting a free ride on its expensive mobile network that cost billions of dollars to build.
What’s more, catastrophes like the Ya’an earthquake only happen once every few years, meaning these social networking services will return to their older function of network-hogging, time wasting tools once the impact of the initial disaster starts to fade. But at the end of the day, this latest turn will ultimately get recorded as a positive step for China’s thriving SNS communities, undoubtedly winning them praise from both domestic and international observers of the Ya’an earthquake relief effort.
