Microblog popularity not all that it seems ...
By Xu Chi and Dong Zhen |
December 18, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE popularity of Chinese equivalents of Twitter is driving some users to attract attention by purchasing "followers" from a booming online business which can help them boost their popularity across the Internet.
A follower, or fan, costs 0.06 yuan at some online stores.
By paying 330 yuan, one can immediately become a star with 10,000 followers on China's leading microblog, t.sina.com.
The production of followers is simple. Vendors working in teams create huge numbers of new accounts with fake names and email addresses in a couple of hours sitting at their computers.
Once the accounts are created the vendors can attach these fake followers to the person or company paying them for the service.
The business, nicknamed "follower factories," emerged early this year on taobao.com, one of the country's biggest online trading platforms, but there were so many complaints that Taobao banned it in August.
However, with the microblogs becoming more and more popular, "follower producers" are back in business again, giving their service information and QQ numbers on some small forums.
And on Taobao.com, vendors have started to sell microblog accounts - so buyers can then follow themselves using those accounts - in a trade that doesn't violate Taobao's regulations.
The accounts cost 1 yuan each and in the past seven days more than 30,000 accounts have been sold.
While some people are paying money to make themselves appear more popular, there is concern that the service might be open to abuse by commercial enterprises.
One blogger, "Moonlight," wrote about a young girl who gained 25,000 followers on the first day she uploaded her picture on Sina's website.
The number of followers increased dramatically to 50,000 later on and her popularity even attracted some media attention. But the story took a new turn when the girl announced that she had been invited to be a model for an online game, and an advertisement for the game appeared on her blog.
"Moonlight" believed the online game company was using the microblog to hype their product.
A Sina.com official told Shanghai Daily they made routine inspections to spot microblogs with a questionably high number of followers.
By October, Sina had more than 50 million registered microblog users and was seeing rapid growth, said Zheng Zhangwei, a marketing official from the website's Shanghai office.
"Sina is against users who gain attention and followers by foul play," he said. "We choose to recommend microblogs with attractive updates instead of purely relying on whether they are followed by many."
A follower, or fan, costs 0.06 yuan at some online stores.
By paying 330 yuan, one can immediately become a star with 10,000 followers on China's leading microblog, t.sina.com.
The production of followers is simple. Vendors working in teams create huge numbers of new accounts with fake names and email addresses in a couple of hours sitting at their computers.
Once the accounts are created the vendors can attach these fake followers to the person or company paying them for the service.
The business, nicknamed "follower factories," emerged early this year on taobao.com, one of the country's biggest online trading platforms, but there were so many complaints that Taobao banned it in August.
However, with the microblogs becoming more and more popular, "follower producers" are back in business again, giving their service information and QQ numbers on some small forums.
And on Taobao.com, vendors have started to sell microblog accounts - so buyers can then follow themselves using those accounts - in a trade that doesn't violate Taobao's regulations.
The accounts cost 1 yuan each and in the past seven days more than 30,000 accounts have been sold.
While some people are paying money to make themselves appear more popular, there is concern that the service might be open to abuse by commercial enterprises.
One blogger, "Moonlight," wrote about a young girl who gained 25,000 followers on the first day she uploaded her picture on Sina's website.
The number of followers increased dramatically to 50,000 later on and her popularity even attracted some media attention. But the story took a new turn when the girl announced that she had been invited to be a model for an online game, and an advertisement for the game appeared on her blog.
"Moonlight" believed the online game company was using the microblog to hype their product.
A Sina.com official told Shanghai Daily they made routine inspections to spot microblogs with a questionably high number of followers.
By October, Sina had more than 50 million registered microblog users and was seeing rapid growth, said Zheng Zhangwei, a marketing official from the website's Shanghai office.
"Sina is against users who gain attention and followers by foul play," he said. "We choose to recommend microblogs with attractive updates instead of purely relying on whether they are followed by many."
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
