Weibo traffic down
Staff Reporter
2011-12-20
11:01 (GMT+8)
Not quite to infinity: Although Sina says Weibo has 250 million registered users, search giant Baidu says the number of visitors to the site has been declining since July. (File Photo/Xinhua)
Microblogging site Sina Weibo — China's version of Twitter — is past its prime, as its leading users are publishing fewer articles every day, an analyst has told Shanghai's First Financial Daily.
Yu Xiao, a graduate student at the Harbin Institute of Technology, told the newspaper that according to data released by international website traffic monitor Alexa, traffic to Weibo.com plateaued in August and the number of pages viewed by its users began dropping in September.
In November, the amount of time Weibo users spent on the site was down 33% compared to July.
Yu's views were shared by a Weibo user, who said most stories on the personal microblogs of social media celebrities were boring gossip.
Although Sina says Weibo has 250 million registered users, search giant Baidu says the number of visitors to Weibo began declining from July, when it started using a new version.
Yu estimates that only 16% of Weibo's registered users are active microbloggers. To inflate the number of their followers, some celebrities and organizations have purchased fake followers, also known as corpse followers, for their microblogs, said Yu.
Dong Xu, an analyst with research firm Analysys International, said Weibo's traffic was declining due to the diversification of terminal devices used to connect to the internet. For example, he said, more than 40% of Weibo's customers were mobile phone users.
Yet IT commentator Hong Po said there is no indication that Weibo users' enthusiasm for the new platform has diminished. While some early users may have tired of this type of media, many others continue to be very active, he said.
Another website monitor said internet products evolve on a growth curve. As users grow in number, so do the numbers of people who grow tired of the product.
A market analyst for an international investment company told the First Financial Daily that Sina has just completed Weibo's expansion phase. Its next step will be to find ways to profit from the site, such as placing advertisements, according to the analyst.
