WSJ BLOG: How Many People Really Use Sina Weibo

China’s most beloved microblog, Sina Corp.’s Weibo is often described as a virtual town square where Chinese people can publicly discuss issues from politics to pop stars with a level of freedom not available elsewhere in the country.

中国人气最高的微博新浪微博常常被描述成是一个虚拟城市广场，在这里，中国人能够以中国其他地方所没有的自由度公开讨论从政治到流行明星等众多话题。

如果是这样，一项新的研究显示这个广场远没有看起来的那么人山人海。

The study, conducted by researchers at Hong Kong University, aimed to discover who was using Weibo by studying a random sample of roughly 30,000 users. Of those, 57% had no posts in the timeline, indicating either an inactive user or one of the so-called zombie accounts created by marketing firms to manipulate follower numbers for real accounts.

该研究是由香港大学(Hong Kong University)研究人员进行的，旨在研究一个约30,000名用户组成的随机样本，进而考察哪些人在使用新浪微博。57%的研究对象在调查期间内没有发过微博，表明他们要么是非活跃用户，要么是所谓的“僵尸账户”中的一员，是营销机构为真实账户操纵关注者数量而创建的账户。

But that’s not all. Looking more deeply at the roughly 12,000 accounts with posts on their timelines, the study reveals Weibo to be less like a town square and more like the Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park, where a vocal minority dominate discussion. Over a seven-day period, the researchers found, 86.9% of users wrote no original posts and 88.9% did not repost any original message from another account. By comparison, 0.5% of users posted more than 20 messages over the seven days, and another 0.5% reposted more than 40 unique messages during the time.

但不止如此。上述研究更深入地考察了调查期间发过微博的约12,000个账户，结果发现新浪微博与其说像个城市广场，不如说更像是伦敦海德公园(Hyde Park)里的演讲角，由少数直言不讳的用户主导着讨论。在一个为期七天的时间段内，研究人员发现，有86.9%的用户没有发过原创帖，有88.9%的用户未转发过别人的原创帖。相比之下，有0.5%的用户在七天的时间里发了20篇以上的微博，另有0.5%的用户在同一时间段内转发了40多篇不同的微博。

The study was conducted in 2012. Developments since then, including an attempt to implement a real-name registration system and increased censorship, might have changed user behavior somewhat, according to King-wa Fu, one of the study’s authors.

研究是在2012年进行的。据研究报告的作者之一傅景华(King-wa Fu)说，自那之后的发展可能从一定程度上改变了用户的行为，这些发展包括尝试实施一个实名注册系统和增大审查力度。

The findings nevertheless shed important new light on a social media service that has been credited with remaking public discourse in China but which remains little understood. Unsure of the meaningfulness of Weibo metrics provided by Sina, analysts have been particularly eager to known how many people use the service regularly.

据有多大意义，他们尤其希望了解有多少人经常使用新浪微博。虽然如此，研究结果让人们对社交媒体服务新浪微博有了新的重大了解。新浪微博一直被赞为重塑了中国的公共讨论平台，但人们对它的了解仍微乎其微。分析人士不确定新浪提供的微博数据。

Applying the 57% figure from the study to the 503 million registered users that Sina said it had at the end of 2012, it would appear that less than 220 million users have ever posted anything on the site. The study’s findings also suggest that only around 30 million users will write a unique post in a given week.

Sina said in its most recent earnings call at the end of last year that Weibo had 46.2 million daily active users, which means that a significant chunk of the people who actively use the sight aren’t posting or reposting messages, but instead just “lurking.”

据新浪说，截至2012年底其注册用户有5.03亿人。按上文提到的调查期间内未发过微博的用户比例57%计算，则有不到2.20亿的用户曾在新浪微博上发过帖子。该研究的结果还表明，只有约3,000万用户一周内会发一篇原创帖。新浪去年底在最近一次收益电话会议上说，新浪微博日活跃用户有4,620万人，这意味着活跃用户中有很多不是在发微博或转发微博，而是在“潜水”。

Similarly for the world’s most famous microblogging service Twitter, active users have also trailed well behind total user numbers. Last summer, research group Semiocast estimated that Twitter had 170 million active users on a total user base of about 500 million. In that case the firm defined an active user as anyone who had tweeted, followed another user, or changed their avatar over the course of a three-month period. Also similar to Weibo, Twitter has a large number of users who primarily use the site more voyeuristically, signing in simply to watch others, but not tweet themselves.

同样地，世界最知名的微博客服务推特(Twitter)的活跃用户也远远低于用户总数。去年夏天，研究机构Semiocast估计，推特用户总数约为5亿，活跃用户有1.7亿。Semiocast将活跃用户定义为，在为期三个月的时间段内发过信息、关注过另外一位用户或改变过头像的用户。和新浪微博类似，推特也有很多用户主要是在“潜水”，登陆只是为了看帖，而不是自己发帖。

“40 percent of our active users simply sign in to listen to what’s happening in their world,” the company wrote in a 2011 blog entry.

该公司2011年在一篇博客中写道，我们有40%的活跃用户只是登陆看看有些什么事发生。

The study found that less than 5% of non-zombie Weibo users wrote a post that elicited a comment or was reposted, suggesting that much of the discussion on Weibo is being driven by a small group of influential microbloggers.

上述研究发现，只有不到5%的非僵尸新浪微博用户发的微博有人评论或被转发，这表明新浪微博上的大部分讨论是受少数有影响力的微博用户的推动。

If influence is skewed on Weibo, so too is the location of users, according to the study.

据上述研究显示，如果说新浪微博受到有影响力的用户的推动，那么也受到了用户所在地的推动。

The authors found that Beijing, Shanghai, and the province of Guangdong, which account for 9% of China’s Internet population, were home to more than a quarter of the 12,000 Weibo users they studied. As one might expect, the study found the greatest penetration of Weibo users on China’s more wealthy east coast.

研究发现，在考察的12,000名新浪微博用户中，有四分之一以上位于北京、上海和广东省。这三个地方的互联网用户占了中国网民总数的9%。不出所料，该研究发现，新浪微博渗透率最高的是中国更为富裕的东部沿海地区。

Somewhat more surprising was Tibet, which had far higher Weibo penetration than surrounding provinces like Xinjiang, Sichuan and Yunnan.

令人更加感到意外的是西藏。西藏的新浪微博渗透率远远高于新疆、四川和云南等周边省份。

While none of this necessarily takes away from the value of the service, whether as a tool for advertisers or a platform for public discourse, it’s a useful reminder that the opinions, desires and interests posted on Weibo belong to only a limited slice of China’s Internet using population.

尽管这些不一定会有损新浪微博的价值，无论是它作为广告客户的工具还是公共讨论的平台的价值，但研究结果不失为一个有益的提醒：新浪微博上发表的观点、愿望和关注的话题仅仅属于中国互联网用户中的一小部分人。