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Rise of microblogging and fall of networking
Source: Xinhua |
January 6, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GOING far beyond human beings' traditional notions, new media has been growing fast and influencing people's lives in ways few things have done before.
In 2010, China's new media industry witnessed explosive development. But with "new" comes uncertainties and challenges.
The following are brief reviews on the development of China's new media and outlooks on its future.
Micro-blogs
At a time when netizens lose interest in lengthy articles and elites seek to always be in the spotlight, micro-blogs make their wishes come true.
Short and convenient, micro-blogs also experienced a "big bang" in China last year, with the number of micro-bloggers at China's popular portal sina.com.cn almost doubling in less than six months.
Afterwards, the other three major web portals, including sohu.com, qq.com and 163.com, each set up their own micro-blogging services.
With more government officials and entities registering, China's micro-blogging services are widely expected to play an more important role in connecting the public and the governments in 2011.
Search engines
Baidu's dominant position in the search engine market would face fierce challenges from rivals, including sohu.com, Microsoft's Bing and goso.cn from the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China.
Xinhua is preparing to launch its joint-venture search engine, together with China Mobile, a leading company in mobile networks. Goso and Xinhua both have the advantage in terms of providing content, while Bing has a big edge in technology and funds.
Internet of Things
IoT refers to a network of real-world objects with microchip sensors that are linked by the Internet and interacting through online services.
With the IoT listed as one of the "emerging strategic industries" in 2009, China set up its first IoT research center in Shanghai in March 2010. However, some experts say it will take a long time for IoT to achieve large-scale development.
Net ghostwriters
"Internet ghostwriters," or wang lo shui jun, are people who write threads with particular content or ideas at the request of public relationship (PR) groups in order to influence more people with their agenda.
These practices often result in privacy violations or damaged reputations on the Internet.
China's Tort Liability Law, which took effect in July last year, stipulates that in cases of privacy violations or damaged reputations, the victim has the right to request the Internet service provider (ISP) to delete harmful postings and that the ISP faces joint liability for damages if it fails to act.
Experts say supervision should focus on those PR companies or sellers who employ online ghostwriters.
Group buying
China's group purchasing websites developed rapidly in 2010 when Wang Xing, founder of twitter-like "fanfou.com," established meituan.com, the Chinese mainland's first group purchasing website.
The potentially lucrative business model of online team-buying websites is also taking in more revenue, as shown by the number of websites, which more than doubled to about 900 in July, according to a Beijing-based Internet analysis firm, Analysys International.
Despite the large number of existing competitors, most of them being small- and medium-sized firms in the market, three of China's four major portal websites launched their own online team-buying services in July.
While online team-buying will attract many more Chinese netizens, insiders also warn that, as a new consumption channel, team-buying lacks legal and regulatory supervision. and customers should be cautious.
Social networking
In the latter half of 2010, China's social networking websites entered a downturn and many small sites closed. Even the leading kaixin001.com received fewer visitors.
The embarrassing fact came to light as a number of Chinese netizens did not grasp the essence of social networking, but only indulged themselves in games, such as stealing vegetables from friends' farms.
Also, many users in social networking sites were said to be only interested in other people's private information, while being reluctant to share their own information.
Networking itself is not the goal. What these websites should do is to create their own innovative products that can help netizens achieve more value through networking, media experts warned.
Public opinion
In 2010, it has become a trend for the government to collect the public's opinions and let them voice their concerns on the Internet.
However, a staggering 78.5 percent of some 450,000 Chinese citizens surveyed were unsatisfied with government websites.
They complained that some government websites were not updated for long periods and netizens' messages were often ignored.
Also, many services and pages were not accessible.
People's rights to know, supervise and participate can be protected via the Internet and the credibility of the governments can be improved.
But in order to fully explore this high-tech shortcut, governments at all levels have a long way to go.
In 2010, China's new media industry witnessed explosive development. But with "new" comes uncertainties and challenges.
The following are brief reviews on the development of China's new media and outlooks on its future.
Micro-blogs
At a time when netizens lose interest in lengthy articles and elites seek to always be in the spotlight, micro-blogs make their wishes come true.
Short and convenient, micro-blogs also experienced a "big bang" in China last year, with the number of micro-bloggers at China's popular portal sina.com.cn almost doubling in less than six months.
Afterwards, the other three major web portals, including sohu.com, qq.com and 163.com, each set up their own micro-blogging services.
With more government officials and entities registering, China's micro-blogging services are widely expected to play an more important role in connecting the public and the governments in 2011.
Search engines
Baidu's dominant position in the search engine market would face fierce challenges from rivals, including sohu.com, Microsoft's Bing and goso.cn from the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China.
Xinhua is preparing to launch its joint-venture search engine, together with China Mobile, a leading company in mobile networks. Goso and Xinhua both have the advantage in terms of providing content, while Bing has a big edge in technology and funds.
Internet of Things
IoT refers to a network of real-world objects with microchip sensors that are linked by the Internet and interacting through online services.
With the IoT listed as one of the "emerging strategic industries" in 2009, China set up its first IoT research center in Shanghai in March 2010. However, some experts say it will take a long time for IoT to achieve large-scale development.
Net ghostwriters
"Internet ghostwriters," or wang lo shui jun, are people who write threads with particular content or ideas at the request of public relationship (PR) groups in order to influence more people with their agenda.
These practices often result in privacy violations or damaged reputations on the Internet.
China's Tort Liability Law, which took effect in July last year, stipulates that in cases of privacy violations or damaged reputations, the victim has the right to request the Internet service provider (ISP) to delete harmful postings and that the ISP faces joint liability for damages if it fails to act.
Experts say supervision should focus on those PR companies or sellers who employ online ghostwriters.
Group buying
China's group purchasing websites developed rapidly in 2010 when Wang Xing, founder of twitter-like "fanfou.com," established meituan.com, the Chinese mainland's first group purchasing website.
The potentially lucrative business model of online team-buying websites is also taking in more revenue, as shown by the number of websites, which more than doubled to about 900 in July, according to a Beijing-based Internet analysis firm, Analysys International.
Despite the large number of existing competitors, most of them being small- and medium-sized firms in the market, three of China's four major portal websites launched their own online team-buying services in July.
While online team-buying will attract many more Chinese netizens, insiders also warn that, as a new consumption channel, team-buying lacks legal and regulatory supervision. and customers should be cautious.
Social networking
In the latter half of 2010, China's social networking websites entered a downturn and many small sites closed. Even the leading kaixin001.com received fewer visitors.
The embarrassing fact came to light as a number of Chinese netizens did not grasp the essence of social networking, but only indulged themselves in games, such as stealing vegetables from friends' farms.
Also, many users in social networking sites were said to be only interested in other people's private information, while being reluctant to share their own information.
Networking itself is not the goal. What these websites should do is to create their own innovative products that can help netizens achieve more value through networking, media experts warned.
Public opinion
In 2010, it has become a trend for the government to collect the public's opinions and let them voice their concerns on the Internet.
However, a staggering 78.5 percent of some 450,000 Chinese citizens surveyed were unsatisfied with government websites.
They complained that some government websites were not updated for long periods and netizens' messages were often ignored.
Also, many services and pages were not accessible.
People's rights to know, supervise and participate can be protected via the Internet and the credibility of the governments can be improved.
But in order to fully explore this high-tech shortcut, governments at all levels have a long way to go.
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