Sina Corporation (, "new wave") is a Chinese technology company. Sina operates four major business lines:
Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...
, Sina Mobile, Sina Online, and Sinanet. Sina has over 100 million registered users worldwide. Sina was recognized by ''
Southern Weekend
''Southern Weekly'' (literally ''Southern Weekend;'' ), is a Chinese weekly newspaper based in Guangzhou, and is a sister publication of the newspaper ''Nanfang Daily''.
History and profile
''Southern Weekly'', founded in 1984, has its head ...
'' as the "China's Media of the Year" in 2003.
Sina owns
Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...
, a
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
-like
microblog
Microblogging is a form of social network that permits only short posts. They "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links",. Retrieved June 5, 2014 which may be the major reason for ...
social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
, which has 56.5 percent of the Chinese microblogging market based on active users and 86.6 percent based on browsing time over Chinese competitors such as
Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...
and
Baidu
Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the la ...
. The social networking service has more than 500 million users and millions of posts per day, making it the largest
Chinese-language
Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
mobile portal.
The company was founded in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
in 1998, and its global financial headquarters have been based in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
since October 1, 2001.
Sina App Engine (SAE) is the earliest and largest
PaaS
Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that allows customers to provision, instantiate, run, and manage a modular bundle comprising a computing ...
platform for
cloud computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...
in China. It is run by SAE Department, which was founded in 2009. SAE is dedicated in providing stable, effective web deployment and hosting service for those corporations, organizations and independent developers. Now more than 300,000 developers in China are using SAE.
Background
It mainly caters to the Chinese population around the globe, Sina stated that it has about 94.8 million registered users and more than 10 million active users engaged in their fee-based services (10,000 of whom are
overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese.
Terminology
() or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...
in North America). It provides different services around the world, for example there are 13 access points within Greater China, and subsidiary tailored pages for overseas Chinese, which include Sina US, Sina Japan, Sina Korea, Sina Australia, Sina Europe and Sina Germany.
It is one of the four major business lines of Sina Corporation. The rest of the major business lines are Sina Mobile, Sina Online and Sinanet. Sina Edalat.
The domain ''sina.com.cn'' attracted at least 3.3 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a
Compete.com
Compete.com was a web traffic analysis service. The company was founded in 2000 and ceased operations in December 2016.
Services
Compete.com provided two categories of information:
*Site Analytics
: a free service, where the user can enter any ...
survey.
Sina Corp also owns
Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...
, a Chinese
microblogging
Microblogging is a form of social network that permits only short posts. They "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links",. Retrieved June 5, 2014 which may be the major reason for ...
site, similar to
Sina Edalat, launched in August 2009. According to Sina Corp the microblogging site has more than 200 million users and millions of posts per day, and is adding 20 million new users per month. The company also said it now has more than 60,000 verified accounts, consisting of celebrities, sports stars and other VIPs. The top 100 users now have over 180 million followers. Furthermore, Sina said that more than 5,000 companies and 2,700 media organizations in China are currently using Sina Weibo.
More recently, Sina also released a "lite-blogging service" similar to Tumblr, called Sina Qing, as well as a location-based service, WeiLingDi. Edalat.
In a survey conducted by Gallup (China) Research Ltd in April 2003, Sina was the most popular company in China, and was estimated to have three billion page data volumes every day. Also, it was awarded the "China's Media of the Year" in 2003 by ''
Southern Weekend
''Southern Weekly'' (literally ''Southern Weekend;'' ), is a Chinese weekly newspaper based in Guangzhou, and is a sister publication of the newspaper ''Nanfang Daily''.
History and profile
''Southern Weekly'', founded in 1984, has its head ...
''. The company claims that it is adding 20 million new users per month. The top 100 users now have over 180 million unique followers combined.
History
In November 1998, SRSNet (Stone Rich Sight Information Technology Ltd), the most visited internet portal site in China, established by and
Wang Yan in 1996, merged with Sinanet, a web site for American Chinese community, created in California by Hurst Lin, , and Jack Hong in 1995. The merging of the two largest Chinese websites formed into the later Sina. Since then the service had been extended across
the straits
''The Straits'' is an Australian television drama series for ABC1 filmed in Cairns, the Torres Strait Islands and other Far North Queensland locations.
The series is based on an idea by actor Aaron Fa'aoso and produced by Penny Chapman and He ...
and
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, before it extended to
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
in July 1999.
[Xin, H. (2002). The Surfer-in-chief and the would-be kings of content – a short study of Sina.com and Netease.com. In S. H. Donald., M. Keane. & Y. Hong. (eds.). ''Media in China: consumption, content and crisis.'' London: Routledge.]
After the merger, Sina maintained its dominant position as the most visited portal site in
Mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
over its major rivals
Sohu
Sohu, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing. Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine (Sogou.com), on-line multiplayer gaming (ChangYou.com) and other se ...
and
NetEase
NetEase, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet technology company providing online services centered on content, community, communications, and commerce. The company was founded in 1997 by Ding Lei. NetEase develops and operates online PC and mobile game ...
, two other web-based companies in China. Especially through its fast, continuous, and comprehensive online news services covering a vast range of worldwide events, such as the
NATO Bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
On May 7, 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (Operation Allied Force), five U.S. Joint Direct Attack Munition guided bombs hit the People's Republic of China embassy in the Belgrade district of New Belgrade, killing three Chinese state ...
in 1999.
Sina was the first to be approved for listing on the
Nasdaq
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
National market on 13 April 2000, through a
variable interest entity (VIE) based in the
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...
, followed by
Netease
NetEase, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet technology company providing online services centered on content, community, communications, and commerce. The company was founded in 1997 by Ding Lei. NetEase develops and operates online PC and mobile game ...
and Sohu in June and July respectively. It succeeded in raising US$68,000,000 before Nasdaq plummeted in May 2000. In July 2000, Sina was the official website for on-line coverage of the
2000 Summer Olympics
The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...
in Sydney as selected by the government and the Chinese Olympic committee (Xin, 2002).
The
Cyberspace Administration of China
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC; ) is the central internet regulator, censor, oversight, and control agency for the People's Republic of China. The office also holds the administrative title of the party's Office of the Central C ...
reprimanded Sina in 2015, accusing the online portal of having "distorted news facts, violated morality and engaged in media hype". On 16 April 2018, the CAC launched an investigation into the news portal for alleged inclinations to factual errors, and failure to curtail vulgar and explicit content.
In August 2019, ''Sina'' Corp's Game Studio, ''Sina Games'' was sued by
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduat ...
on a claim that their game ''Glorious Saga'' is a blatant rip-off of the long-running
Warcraft
''Warcraft'' is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of five core games: '' Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', '' Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness'', '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos ...
games and related products.
Management
Key officers
* Mr.
Charles Chao
Charles Chao or Guowei Chao ()has served as the chairman of the board of directors since the inception of Weibo Corporation. He has served as the chairman of the board of directors of Weibo's parent company, SINA, since August 2012, and has been ...
: Chairman and chief executive officer. He received his Master of Professional Accounting from the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
in Austin, TX. and holds an MA degree in journalism from the
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...
.
*Ms. Du Hong: President and Chief Operating Officer. She holds a B.S. in Applied Chemistry from
Harbin Institute of Technology
Harbin Institute of Technology (; abbreviation: HIT or ) is a public research university and a member of China's elite C9 League and a member of the University Alliance of the Silk Road. HIT is a Chinese Ministry of Education Class A Doubl ...
and an M.S. in MIS from
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
.
* Ms. Bonnie Yi Zhang:
Chief Financial Officer
The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...
. She graduated summa cum laude in 1997 with a B.A. in Business Administration from McDaniel College in Maryland. She is a certified public accountant in the State of Maryland and is a member of the American Institution of Certified Public Accountants.
Partnership
Sina cooperates with other web-based companies such as ''
People
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
'',
Nanfang Daily
The ''Nanfang Daily'' (), also known as ''Southern Daily'' and ''Nanfang Ribao'', is the official newspaper of the Guangdong provincial committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The paper was established in Guangzhou on October 23, 1949.
On Oct ...
, Lifeweek and
Xinhuanet
Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: )J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. Xinhua ...
, etc. Apart from the media partners, its clients include
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
,
DELL
Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies.
Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
,
IBM,
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...
, and
Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
. Recently Sina started developing its business in the field of wireless internet, in the meantime collaborating with
China Mobile
China Mobile is the trade name of both China Mobile Limited () and its ultimate controlling shareholder, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. (, formerly known as China Mobile Communications Corporation, "CMCC"), a Chinese state-ownedSt ...
,
China Telecom
China Telecom Corp., Ltd. is a Chinese telecommunications company. It is one of the red chip listed companies of state-owned China Telecommunications Corporation. Its H shares have been traded on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since 15 Nove ...
,
Ericsson
(lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...
.
On January 13, 2004, Sina and Yahoo started to jointly provide online auction services in China; in response to this,
EachNet
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
(), which cooperates with
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
, lowered its registration fee in early February 2004 in order to keep its market share.
Sina also sponsors the annual
ChinICT conference held at the
Tsinghua Science Park.
Recently, Sina has begun collaborating with
Qihoo 360
Qihoo 360 (; approximate pronunciation CHEE-hoo), full name 360 Security Technology Inc., is a Chinese internet security company that has developed the antivirus software programs 360 Safeguard and 360 Mobile Safe, the Web browser 360 Secure Bro ...
on internet security. Through this collaboration, Qihoo 360 intend to provide Sina Weibo tech support in order to protect Weibo from hackers and viruses. As of April 24, 2012 an official statement has not yet been made announcing the collaboration.
Features
Multiple services
Sina provides Internet services to the Chinese population around the world. In every localized website, there are over thirty integrated channels, including news,
sports
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...
, technology information, finance, advertising services, entertainment, fashion, and travel.
Sina is a multiple-service provider, its major services are
SMS
Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
,
eMail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
,
Search
Searching or search may refer to:
Computing technology
* Search algorithm, including keyword search
** :Search algorithms
* Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence
* Search engine technology, software for findi ...
, Games, Match, Entertainment,
Sina Sports
Sina Sports is a Chinese digital sports media platform that provides live sporting events, highlights, news, discussion forums and other related sports content, primarily targeted at Chinese communities around the world. It is a subsidiary of Chi ...
, Sina Blog, and Sina Microblogging. Sina Blog (中文: 新浪博客) is the
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
service of Sina, which features the blogs of celebrities, including the most popular blog in the world, the one of
Xu Jinglei
Xu Jinglei (, born 16 April 1974 in Chaoyang District, Beijing) is a Chinese actress and film director. She was hailed as one of the Four Dan Actresses in China. In 2002, Xu won the Huabiao Award for Outstanding New Actress for her performance ...
.
Sina Weibo
Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily acti ...
is an equivalent to
Tencent Weibo
Tencent Weibo was a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website launched by Tencent in April 2010, and was shut down on September 28th, 2020. Users could broadcast a message including 140 Chinese characters at most through the web, SMS or smartphone.
...
. Many celebrities from mainland China, Taiwan and also Hong Kong use Sina's Microblog as a platform to reach out to their fans and supporters. Some famous users on Sina's Microblog include Taiwanese hosts
Dee Shu
Dee Hsu (; born 14 June 1978), more commonly known as Xiǎo S or Little S (小S), is a Taiwanese television host, actress, and singer, also formerly a ballroom dancer. Hsu is well known for her quick-witted caustic humor. From 2004 to 2015, she co ...
and
Kevin Tsai
Kevin Tsai (; born 1 March 1962) is a Taiwanese television host and writer. He co-hosts Chung T'ien Television's ''Kangsi Coming'' with hostess Dee Hsu.
Early life
Tsai was born to a wealthy family. His father was a well known lawyer and his f ...
, with more than ten million followers on their microblogs each.
A big challenge for Sina is monetizing the massive Weibo following. Sina Edalat has taken several steps in that direction, and is reportedly developing a "pay-for-forward" feature. The feature will enable users to pay to have a message forwarded by an account with a large following. Sina plans to keep 20% of the revenue generated from "pay-for-forward" fees.
Local content
To provide tailored internet services for local people, Sina has been conducting quantitative and qualitative marketing researches, including
demographic
Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings.
Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as edu ...
research, psychograph, etc., on target audience in specific regions. Internationalized services have a common layout which consists of sections like news, information, infotainment and email services with localized content.
Localization involves political
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
. As with all internet content providers operating within mainland China, the web pages which are geared toward mainland China audiences have internet censors controlling the discussion for sensitive political content. In addition, the news from sina comes from local newspapers, which in the case of mainland China are themselves subject to censorship by the government. This censorship does not extend to pages and forums which are not intended for audiences within mainland China.
Network technology
According to the company's published information, Sina.comXpressTM and Sina.comPlusTM are Sina.com's two main exclusive technologies, which bring ease-of-use benefits and enable the audience of
Big 5 Big Five may refer to:
Animals
* the Big Five, large African wild animals said to be most difficult to hunt: lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and Cape buffalo
* Big Five animals of the Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India: Indian rhinocero ...
(
traditional Chinese character
Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...
), and
GB (
simplified Chinese characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...
) to view the webpages sourced from around the Chinese communities of the world.
Publications
* Collection of internet users
* Cooperative publisher
** ()
** ()
** ()
** ()
See also
*
Microblogging in China
Weibo (微博 ''wēi bó'') is a general term for ''microblogging'', but normally understood as Chinese-based mini-blogging services, including social chat sites and platform sharing.
Weibo services makes it possible for internet users to set up ...
References
External links
*
Financial headquarternews
Weblog on Chinese Internet CompaniesSina Weibo site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sina.Com
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
Internet properties established in 1999
Companies based in Shanghai
Companies based in Beijing
Chinese brands
Chinese news websites
Chinese companies established in 1999