Tencent Weibo was 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 ...

(

weibo Weibo may refer to: * Microblogging in China, or China-based microblogging services (), including: ** NetEase Weibo (), launched by NetEase ** People's Weibo (), launched by ''People's Daily'' ** Phoenix Weibo (), launched by Phoenix Television ** W ...

) website launched by

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 wo ...

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.

Introduction

Tencent Weibo was a social network that connected all users together. It enhanced communication between friends. Users could share photos, videos and text with a 140-character limit. The reposting function of Tencent Weibo was similar to

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 ...

's "retweeting", which was replied in @ form. In comparison, Tencent Weibo encourages users to create new topics on their own. With the support of QQ, Tencent didn't intend to launch Tencent Weibo at a strategic level, but as a marketing tactic to curb competitors. Some Chinese celebrities were Tencent Weibo users, including, Ma Huateng,

Zhou Hongyi Zhou Hongyi (; born 4 October 1970) is a Chinese billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the Internet security company Qihoo 360. As of November 2018, he is ranked #45 on Forbes China Rich List 2018 and #135 on Forbes ...

, Liu Xiang and

Jet Li Li Lianjie (courtesy name Yangzhong; born 26 April 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese film actor, film producer, martial artist, and retired Wushu champion. He is a naturalized Singaporean citizen. After three years ...

Features

Initially only QQ users could register Tencent Weibo account corresponding to their own QQ number. Weibo accounts were not automatically registered for QQ users, they needed to log into their Tencent Weibo page for registration. Email address could be used for registration (formerly only QQ email address were supported). Posts could be shortened into an url.cn domain name. Each user could follow up to 2,000 people. Through the QQ client (Windows Simplified Chinese version of the QQ2010 Beta 3 or later version), QQ Pinyin input method, computer, smartphone ( iPhone,

Android OS Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of deve ...

, S60, and KJava),

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 ...

and MMS, users could broadcast microblogging messages. In addition, photos could be inserted in all form, except SMS. Also, users could add videos (

Tencent Video Tencent Video (, also called WeTV outside of China) is a Chinese video streaming website owned by Tencent. The website was launched in April 2011, and is one of China's largest online video platforms. As of March 2022, Tencent Video has over 1.2 ...

) and songs (

QQ Music QQ Music () is one of the three Chinese freemium music streaming services owned by Tencent Music, a joint venture between Tencent and Spotify. As of 2018, the service is set to reach over 700 million users with an estimated 120 million subscri ...

History

Early in 2007, Tencent launched a microblogging-like website Taotao.com. However, due to some operating problems, on January 26, 2010, Tencent announced to shut down and merge the website into the

Qzone Qzone () is a social networking website based in China which was created by Tencent in 2005. It allows users to write blogs, keep diaries, send photos, listen to music, and watch videos. Users can set their Qzone background and select accessori ...

. Later in March, Qoocu.com (a blog focusing on products of Tencent) released some screenshots of the internal beta test of Tencent Weibo. On April 1, Tencent began its public beta test, people with an invitation code might take part in the test. And on the same day, Tencent released its QQ2010 version Beta3, with the microblogging feature included. In the second quarter of 2012 it had 469 million registered users. On July 23, 2014, Tencent Inc announced that it will integrate its micro-blogging service's operation team into the company's news team, after media reported that it has dismissed its micro-blogging department and will stop upgrading its micro-blogging service. In September 2020, Tencent shut down their Weibo.

Developer platform

Tencent Weibo acted as an 'open' platform for developers and users to communicate and share data widely. After signing on, developers and users could use the open API to create an application. Through the application, they could obtain information or spread new information.

References

External links

t.qq.com: Tencent Weibo website
{{Microblogging Tencent Chinese social networking websites Blog hosting services Defunct microblogging services Real-time web 2010 establishments in China Internet properties established in 2010