TechWebreports that according to informed sources, Sina Weibo is “actively preparing” to release its microblogging platform in English to go directly head on against Twitter, in about 2-3 months.
Earlier this year, Sinaannounced its plans to monetizeits hugely popular microblogging service and since then has been very active withrolling out new features. Probably the most conclusive piece of evidence to support the rumor is theintroductionof an English version of its iPhone app last month.
This will make Sina Weibo one of the first Chinese social networks to be launched in the U.S.in English. As of May, Sina Weibo has reached more than 140 million registered users and expects to top 200 million users by the end of the year, making it one of China’s hottest social networks today.
It will be interesting how Sina Weibo willapply the mandatory China censorshipto other countries, especially ones that are protected by laws onInternet freedom, which require sites to be completely open.
Twitter, founded in 2006, has more than 300 million registered accounts globally. It is available in English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Korean and other 9 languages, with 70% of traffic from outside the United States.
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China has a huge Internet marketcapable of sustaining itselfand despite the hardships for a Chinese Internet company to enter foreign markets, it looks like Sina Weibo has thebest shotamong social networks.
Wereportedearlier that Sina Weibo is bigger in China than Twitter is in the US but it’s still hard to compare since they are two very different markets. Being made available in English will certainly even out the playing field that we might be able to tell which microblogging platform is superior.
Story byFrancis Tan
Francis Tan is the Asia editor of TNW, who is based in the Philippines. He is particularly interested in Asian Internet startups, social me(show all)Francis Tanis the Asia editor of TNW, who is based in the Philippines. He is particularly interested in Asian Internet startups, social media and e-commerce. Get in touch with him via Twitter@francistanor Emailfrancis@thenextweb.com.
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