Fighting fake followers: hard to do - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Your number of followers might be an important metric for popularity, but figuring out who are fake or not is tough, in China, even more than elsewhere, says marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok. And at Weibo the problem is even tougher, she tells at Abacus News.

Abacus News:

“On Weibo, fake fans are a very big problem,“ said Ashley Dudarenok, founder of Chinese social media marketing agency Chozan. Pop idols in China, many of whom gained fame through various singing competition shows, are known to compete with each other to get more fans, she added... 

It’s not just celebrities that are using fake followers, either. Even government-linked social media sites were warned to stop engaging in the practice. 

Not all bots are created equal. Some are simple bots that are easy to spot. More expensive and harder-to-detect fakes might come from click farm factories with thousands of connected phones. 

“It's very difficult to distinguish them from real users. They are using phones and apps like real users,” said Dudarenok. 

Weibo and other social platforms have been trying to fix the problem. 

In February, Weibo promised to support the government in cracking down on fake engagement for celebrities. It has also been changing algorithms to weed out the fakes. The platform now limits the number of shares and likes shown on posts to 1 million. 

However, the problem might not be so easy to fix. Weibo is different from Twitter because it hosts a lot of bloggers and promoted content, Dudarenok explained. 

Weibo owes a lot of its popularity to the type of content put up by creators, many of whom are getting paid by specific brands. To attract those brands, influencers are incentivized to keep their follower counts high.

More at Abacus News.

  Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more marketing experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Comparing Alibaba and JD at Single's Day - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok, co-author of Unlocking the World's Largest E-market: A Guide To Selling on Chinese Social Media, looks back at the successful 11.11 Single's day and compared Alibaba and competitor JD. She also noticed an emerging anti-consumerism movement at Weibo, where a growing number of people refuse to buy during this shopping festival.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more marketing experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

China´s e-commerce: better in making money - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

When it comes to making money, Chinese e-commerce is more creative and successful, than any of their US counterparts, says VC William Bao Bean to the Washington Post.  However, Chinese start-ups need to show they can generate enough revenue to make the model work in the middle term.

The Washington Post:

“You go on Facebook and you can’t even buy anything, but on WeChat and Weibo you can buy anything you see,” said William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner at SOS Ventures and the managing director of Chinaccelerator, a start-up accelerator... 

While U.S. firms focus on ad revenue, Chinese companies have become pacesetters in e-commerce. A more recent trend: live-streaming sites where people pay real money to reward performers with virtual gifts. (You sang beautifully, here’s a digital Lamborghini, dear.) 

Bean called the amount of money flowing through these apps “significant.” Like their peers in Palo Alto, Calif., however, Chinese start-ups need to show they can generate enough revenue to make the model work in the middle term.

More in the Washington Post.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more e-commerce experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Facebook´s China competitors make real money - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Most of the American internet companies like Facebook still make money through advertising, while their Chinese competitors like WeChat and Weibo make money through selling all you can think of, tells Shanghai-based VC William Bao Bean to AP. They are way ahead of Facebook.

AP:

Buoyed by that cash, China's tech start-ups are experimenting with new models that have the potential to make real money - and influence people around the globe. 

"You go on Facebook and you can't even buy anything, but on Wechat and Weibo you can buy anything you see," said William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner at SOS Ventures and the managing director of Chinaccelerator, a start-up accelerator.

"Facebook's road map looks like a WeChat clone."... 

Because mass retail is relatively new here, Chinese e-commerce faces less competition from brick-and-mortar shops. And the middle class is exploding, accounting for 4 percent of the population in 2000 and 68 percent in 2012, according to research by McKinsey. By 2022, it will be 75 percent. 

While U.S. firms focus on ad revenue, Chinese companies have become pace-setters in e-commerce. A more recent trend: live-streaming sites where people pay real money to reward performers with virtual gifts. (You sang beautifully, here's a digital Lamborghini, dear.) 

Bean called the amount of money flowing through these apps "significant." Like their peers in Palo Alto, however, Chinese start-ups need to show they can generate enough revenue to make the model work in the middle term.

More in AP.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more experts on e-commerce at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Earlier this year we discussed with William Bao Bean how Facebook has started to copy its Chinese competitors

.

Internet companies fight zombie followers - Sam Flemming

+Sam Flemming 

A massive following on China´s social media does not mean so much, as many are zombie followers. As the internet grows up, internet companies try to fight the zombies tells CIC-founder Sam Flemming in AdAge.

AdAge: 

Sam Flemming, founder and CEO of China-based social business intelligence firm CIC, says more brands are "trying to weed out zombie fans or stop the practices leading to zombie fans."
That said, some brands and managers still chase big numbers. And there's also a mystery component to some zombies -- sometimes they just appear, even if brands, agencies or celebs don't want them around.
Sina's Weibo isn't yet 5 years old, and Mr. Flemming said it's following a natural progression. "Phase One is looking at social media as a media, saying, 'Bigger numbers are better,'" said Mr. Flemming, whose company helps brands vet the quality of followers. "Phase Two is looking at social media and recognizing it's also an opportunity for engagement. And if you're going to engage you'd rather be doing it with real people as opposed to zombies."

More in AdAge. 

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you a media representative and do you want to talk to one of our speakers? Drop us a line.

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Business as usual after Beijing flooding - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

The Beijing mayor and a vice-mayor lost their jobs, Weibo is rife with rumors about a high number of causalities, but - unlike what some US newspapers suggest - the city does not face a confidence crisis, explains Beijing watcher Jeremy Goldkorn on his weblog.

Jeremy Goldkorn:

“Living in China has always meant having to learn to tolerate a certain amount of mendacity on the part of the government. This is nothing new.”... 

One reason for the lower levels of outrage may be that the flood was caused by an observable natural phenomenon — anyone in Beijing on July 21 will have seen and probably been soaked by the torrential rains. There may have been underinvestment in rainwater drainage systems, but this is perhaps understandable in a city as dry as Beijing — sitting on the edge of northern deserts and with no river running through it. 

Personally, I don’t see how such disasters can be avoided if China’s continues it breakneck urban development. Beijing had a population of around ten million people and almost no private cars in 1990. There are now around twenty million people, maybe more, in the greater Beijing area, and they are all driving around on brand new roads, lined by brand new skyscrapers as well as shoddily constructed buildings that are just biding their time before demolition. Despite the economic gloom of the last two years, construction continues apace in Beijing. It’s just too fast for it all to be safe. 

I do not expect the disaster of the 2012 Beijing flood to be investigated thoroughly. After all there has not yet been an open, public investigation of the Wenzhou high speed train crash.

More on Jeremy Goldkorn's weblog.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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The genuine debate on Weibo - Jeremy Goldkorn

Add caption

China's lively micro-blogging services might have to face internet controls, but that does not mean the national and local debate is curtailed, explains internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn  to Australia's ABC.

ABC:

Jeremy Goldkorn is another avid follower of Weibo and other Chinese social media sites. 

He was the founding director of Danwei.com and is a respected Beijing-based researcher of the Chinese internet. 

JEREMY GOLDKORN: Social media has, perhaps for the first time in Chinese history, given every citizen a space where they can express themselves that really never used to exist in any institutionalised format. China's never had a very uncensored letters to the editors pages in its newspapers etc. and social media has given people a place to express themselves that is just unprecedented. 

STEPHEN MCDONELL: And on Weibo can you just talk about anything, or are there certain subjects completely off limits, or where are the lines? 

JEREMY GOLDKORN: People do try to talk about absolutely anything on Weibo but there are lots of subjects that you can't talk about. And most of the subjects that you can't talk about if you do start talking about them your postings get deleted and if you continue to talk about them your account may possibly be deleted. And this censorship is done by Sina, the company that controls Weibo, because they have to because their business licence is dependent on government approval of them, and the government expects them to make sure that the content is clean. But it is nonetheless remarkable, despite the censorship what a wide and vibrant range of discussion there is on Weibo about every issue imaginable of concern to the Chinese people.   

STEPHEN MCDONELL: So it's not just people chatting about their love lives and stuff like that; there is genuine discussion about serious issues in China? 

JEREMY GOLDKORN: Oh absolutely, there's genuine discussion. There's a lot of quite bitter name calling and feuding between different intellectual camps and different writers and bloggers and tweeters but it ranges the gamut from people uploading pictures of their kitties to serious political discussion.

More at ABC.


Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Weibo: Twitter on crack - Tricia Wang

Tricia Wang

Twitter should have a thorough look at their Chinese Weibo competitors, says tech ethnographer Tricia Wang in an interview with FastCompany. Being picture-based is just one lesson they can learn, she argues.

Tricia Wang:

The two most important apps are Renren, essentially a copycat of Facebook, and Weibo, which is like Twitter--but like Twitter on crack. We often don’t think we have a lot to learn from tech companies outside of the U.S., but Twitter should look to Weibo for inspiration for what can be done. It’s like a mashup of Tumblr, Zynga, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s very picture-based, whereas Twitter is still very text-based. In Weibo, the pictures are right under each post, so you don’t have to make an extra click to view them. And people are using this in subversive ways. Whether you’re using algorithms to search text or actual people--and China has the largest cyber police force in the world—it’s much easier to censor text than images. So people are very subversive in hiding messages in pictures. These pictures are sometimes very different than what people are texting, or will often say a lot more than the actual text itself. 

A big turning point in China was the train crash last year. Everyone in China takes the train, and it’s a state-run enterprise. So after this big crash there was essentially a large government cover-up. But people were taking pictures and sending out messages on Weibo up until the last minute when the crash happened, and even though it was censored, the news got out because all these pictures were forwarded through social media. As much as the government tries to control information through censorship, there are all these user strategies to overcome it, too. There’s a new thing called “long Weibo,” which allows you to paste in a whole essay, and it converts it to a JPEG. It’s small, but you can click on it and it fills your screen so you can actually read the whole essay right there. It’s something small but critical in understanding how social media operates in China. Likewise, in the U.S., I like observing how users hack around social-media platforms, because ultimately these behaviors are rooted in culture.

 More at FastCompany.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

More about Tricia Wang and her investigation of China's economic underbelly at Storify. 

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Why Sina Weibo is a winner, despite rules - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

Despite much domestic competition, the twitter-like service Sina Weibo is technical better and offering most interesting conversations,tells internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn in the Artman Talks. And why the 'real name registration' did not really work.

Nanny instincts from the government to register the real names of weibo users did not work, just like previous efforts for user registration. "It is an authoritarian system not being that authoritarian at all." Revenue for companies seems to be more important than real control, Goldkorn says, explaining why shutting down popular internet services is not high on the agenda.

More in the Artman Talks. Listen here for the full podcast.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting of conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' registration form.

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Dealing with a tsunami of information - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

Over 500 million Chinese are on internet, and 300 million have a Twitter-like weibo account, causing a tsunami of information that is hard to manage, tells internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn in the Deutsche Well. That offers the citizens an inprecedented freedom, despite censorship. 

Deutsche Welle:

Chinese censors are currently focusing most of their attention on the Internet. Their greatest annoyance has been a social media website similar to Twitter called “Weibo”. About 300 million Chinese have at least one Weibo account. 

“The Internet and options like Weibo give people the chance to express themselves more than ever before in the history of China,” said blogger Jeremy Goldkorn, who lives in China. 

A new law requires Weibo users to register with their real names. The legislation still hasn't gone into effect. 

Goldkorn has seen regulation of Internet use grow stronger through censorship in China. Aside from the Weibo-law, censorship has limited itself to traditional methods, such as shutting down websites. When a power struggle was taking place within China's Communist Party, the government disabled the comment function for three days on social media websites similar to Twitter. 

The problems stems from more than just one website or trying to control public opinion on politics. ”We're dealing with a tsunami of information that didn't exist before,” Goldkorn said.

More in Deutsche Welle

  Jeremy Goldkorn in a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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A more subtle management of the internet censorship - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

While the government is still firm in control, the online debate in China has become more outspoken, and the authorities rather try to manage the information flow, rather than shut it up, tells internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn in the Global Post. 

The Global Post:

Some critics see China's recent moves to regulate the sector as an attempt to exert a softer kind of control. 

“I think they are using a strategy of trying to shape and guide the conversation rather than shut it off,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Danwei, a blog about media in China. 

“[This new policy] shows the party is as serious as it’s ever been about controlling information, and that message isn’t lost on people. But I haven’t seen that any of the recent measures have had the effect of dampening the conversation."... 

In the last several years, microblogs have become a crucial outlet not only for frank political opinion, but also breaking news. In August 2011, a high-speed train crashed in Zhejiang province and killed 40 people. While the state-run media largely steered clear of it — as with other controversies — weibo users broke the news and covered it obsessively, generating 10 million messages on the crash in a single week. 

“Weibo is absolutely key to understanding the Chinese media landscape,” Goldkorn said. "Everyone in the media in China is on weibo. Your taxi driver who doesn’t get online will eventually hear about news because it’s broken there first.” This power to drive the news explains the Communist Party's urgent concern about microblogs — especially in a once-a-decade election year. This fall, seven new members will be nominated to the nine-man clique that rules China, the Politboro Standing Committee.

More in The Global Post.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  

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China's internet "freer than ever" - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

The internet in China might face yet another clampdown by the authorities, internet veteran Jeremy Goldkorn points out in USA Today that despite those actions, China's internet is freer than ever, although microblog services of Tencent and Sina had to hold commenting temporary.

USA Today:

The clampdown on Sina and Tencent is "not an extreme act of censorship but reminds everybody of who is in charge; it sends a signal to the Internet companies and users that the government is watching you," said Jeremy Goldkorn, director of Danwei.com, a website focused on Chinese media and Internet. 

China's Internet today "is the freest platform of public expression ever, but there is also a constant effort by the government to rein it in," Goldkorn said.

More in USA Today.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Unprecedented online chatter on Bo Xilai - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

The recent dismissal of Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai triggered off a lot of comments on China's microblogs. Even veteran internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn has to admit in the Wall Street Journal he was amazed, this time.

The Wall Street Journal:

"I don't recall ever seeing anything like this on the Chinese Internet," said Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Danwei, a website that tracks Chinese media, of the recent proliferation of political gossip. The presence of so much rumor online is one likely explanation for the stepped-up censorship, he said. 

"Things are getting a little too out of control, so they've decided to rein it in," Mr. Goldkorn said, adding that it was difficult to say whether the decision to block searches came from government authorities or the websites' own in-house censors. 

Searches for "Ferrari," "coup" and Zhou Yongkang's name were also blocked on Sina Weibo this week. To beat the blocks, users have begun referring to Mr. Zhou as "Kang Shifu," using the name of a drink and instant noodle brand in a wordplay on the last character in Mr. Zhou's name.

More in The Wall Street Journal Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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New rules won't kill weibo - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

China's authorities try to curtail the internet and especially try to implement a 'real-name' policy for online debate. But internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn does not see the end of the internet in China as we know it, he tells in the Voice of America.

VOA:

Jeremy Goldkorn, the founder of the China media monitoring website Danwei.org says although authorities said the new system would start in December, not much has changed. “I don’t think it has actually been implemented anywhere, at least not thoroughly. Because it’s still possible to do a lot in the Internet without using your real name, including Weibo services.” 

If authorities do follow through on the plan, Goldkorn agrees with other critics who say that the loss of anonymity will have a big impact on microblogs. 

“It will certainly have a chilling effect on discussion on Weibo, because a lot of people will be wary of speaking their mind if there is going to be a real name attached to their account.  But I don’t think it’s going to kill off Weibo,” Goldhorn said.

More in the VOA.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch, or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Party secretary puts squeeze on Sina Weibo - Jeremy Goldkorn

Public debate has gone wild on China's internet fora, especially on the twitter-clone Sina Weibo. The party establishment try trying to regain control and the Beijing party secretary paid a visit to the Sina headquarters. Internet observer Jeremy Goldkorn comments in the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal:

"This kind of thing–these visits–have been going on a long time, but if it's the Party secretary of Beijing, that does seem to be sending a fairly clear signal," Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Danwei, a website that tracks Chinese media, said Tuesday... Exactly what signal Mr. Liu intended to send over Weibo remains unclear, though Mr. Goldkorn said he thought a complete shutdown was "unlikely." The political costs of taking away such a popular service, he said, would be too great, "but they could squeeze it to the point where it becomes far less interesting." The government has several tools at its disposal for exercising more control over what gets said on Weibo without pulling the plug entirely. For example, it could require that Sina step up in-house censorship by banning more searches for sensitive keywords and hiring more human censors to take down sensitive posts.

More in the Wall Street  Journal   Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Weibo stopped toeing the party line after railway crash - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

China's successful microblogging service Weibo ignored the party line, as the online anger about the railway crash near Wenzhou exploded. Internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn explains in CNN the government is trying to put the ghost back into the bottle. Yang Feng, who lost family in the crash, became an overnight hero.

CNN:

While [the official broadcaster] CCTV shunned him, Yang became an overnight hero in the eyes of Chinese netizens who were riled by the government response to the accident, especially the perceived ineptitude and arrogance of the railway ministry. Less than 24 hours after he posted his first message on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, Yang has gained more than 110,000 followers.

"The closer you get to the centrally controlled media, the more they toe the Communist Party line," explained Jeremy Goldkorn, a long-time Chinese media observer whose Danwei website monitors the industry. "For this accident, Weibo posts have been so far ahead of official responses."...

For Weibo users, however, any sense of vindication may prove short-lived. Analysts say Internet censors have already begun deleting more posts as netizens became critical of not just the scandal-plagued railway ministry but also of the flaws of the political system.

"They are trying to shove the genie back in the bottle," media observer Goldkorn said. "Weibo is such an effective amplifier of people's dissatisfaction that it is worrying the government a lot."

Now Yang has turned uncharacteristically quiet. Pleading for his supporters' understanding, he alluded in his most recent Weibo posts that he was under tremendous pressure to keep a low profile for the well-being of his family -- including his father-in-law, who survived the train crash.

More in the aftermath of the railway crash at CNN.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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