Sina Weibo

File:Sina Weibo.svg
URL	weibo.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	microblogging
Available language(s)	Chinese: Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese
Owner	SINA Corporation
Launched	14 August 2009; 2 years ago  (2009-08-14)[1]
Alexa rank	26 (April 2012[update])[2]
Current status	Active

Sina Weibo (Chinese: 新浪微博; pinyin: Xīnlàng Wēibó; literally "Sina Microblog") is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook, it is one of the most popular sites in China, in use by well over 30% of Internet users, with a similar market penetration that Twitter has established in the USA.^[3] It was launched by SINA Corporation on 14 August 2009,^[1] and has more than 300 million registered users as of February 2012. About 100 million messages are posted each day on Sina Weibo.^[4]

Naming[link]

"Weibo" (微博) is the Chinese word for "microblog(ging)". Sina Weibo launched its new domain name weibo.com on 7 April 2011, deactivating and redirecting from the old domain, t.sina.com.cn to the new one. Due to its popularity, the own published news of Sina.com and some other media use directly "Weibo" to refer to Sina Weibo sometimes. However, there are other China-based microblogging/weibo services including Tencent Weibo, Sohu Weibo and NetEase Weibo.

History[link]

After the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, China shut down most of the domestic microblogging services including the first weibo service Fanfou. Many popular non China-based microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook and Plurk have been blocked from viewing since then. It was considered to be an opportunity to Sina's CEO Charles Chao.^[5][6] SINA Corporation launched the tested version of Sina Weibo on 14 August 2009. Basic functions including message, private message, comment and re-post were made possible in September, 2009. A Sina Weibo-compatible API platform for developing third-party applications was launched on 28 July 2010.^[1]

On 1 December 2010 the website experienced an outage, administrators later claimed it was due to the increasing numbers of users and posts.^[7] Registered users surpassed 100 million before March 2011.^[8] Since 23 March 2011, t.cn has been used as Sina Weibo's official URL shortening domain name in lieu of sinaurl.cn. On 7 April 2011, weibo.com replaced t.sina.com.cn to be the new domain used by the website. Meanwhile the official logo was also updated.^[9] In June, Sina announced an English version of Sina Weibo would be developed and launched, where the contents would still be controlled by Chinese law.^[10]

Users[link]

According to iResearch's report on 30 March 2011, Sina Weibo had 56.5% of China's microblogging market based on active users and 86.6% based on browsing time over competitors such as Tencent Weibo and Baidu's services.^[11] The top 100 users had over 485 million followers combined. Furthermore, Sina said that more than 5,000 companies and 2,700 media organizations in China uses Sina Weibo. The site is maintained by a growing microblogging department of 200 employees responsible for technology, design, operations, and marketing.^[12]

Sina executives invited and persuaded many Chinese celebrities to join the platform. The users of Sina Weibo include Chinese Celebrities from Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan and Macau movie stars, singers, famous business and media figures, athletes, scholars, artists, organizations, religious figures, government departments and officials.^{[5][6][13][14]} Like Twitter, Sina Weibo has a verification program for known people and organizations. Once an account is verified, a verification badge will be added beside the account name.

Features[link]

Sina Weibo implements many features from Twitter. Users may post with a 140-character limit, mention or talk to other people using "@UserName" format, add hashtags with "#HashName#" format, follow other people to make his/her posts appear in users' own timeline, re-post with "//@UserName" similar to Twitter's retweet function "RT @UserName", put a post into the favorite list, verify the account if the user is a celebrity. URLs are automatically shortened using the domain name t.cn like Twitter's t.co. Official and third-party applications make users able to access Sina Weibo from other websites or platforms.

Additionally, users are allowed to insert graphical emoticons or attach own image, music, video files in every post. Comments to a post can be shown as a list right below the post, the commenter can also choose whether to re-post the comment, quoting the whole original post, to commenter's own page.

Unregistered users can only browse a few posts by verified accounts. Neither unverified account pages nor comments to the posts by verified accounts are accessible to unregistered users.

Clients[link]

Sina produced mobile applications for various platforms to access Sina Weibo, the platforms include Android, Blackberry OS, iOS, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone.

Sina also released a desktop client for Microsoft Windows under the product name of Weibo Desktop.^[15]

International versions[link]

Sina Weibo is available in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters. The site also has versions catering to users from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Weibo is now developing its international version.

Other services[link]

Weilingdi (微领地) is another service bundled with Weibo that is similar to Foursquare, a location-based social networking website based on software for mobile devices. In addition, Sina Lady Weibo (新浪女性微博) is another service, which specializes in women's interests.

Self-censorship[link]

In cooperation with internet censorship in China, Sina sets strict controls over the posts on its services.^[16][17] Posts with links using some URL shortening services (including Google's goo.gl), or containing blacklisted keywords,^[18] are not allowed on Sina Weibo. Posts on politically sensitive topics are deleted after manual checking.^[19] According to anti-online censorship activist Rebecca MacKinnon, Sina Weibo is believed to employ approximately 1,000 people to monitor and censor its users.^[20]

On 9 March 2010, the posts by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei at Sina Weibo to appeal for information on 2008 Sichuan earthquake going public was deleted and his account was closed by website's administrator. Attempts to register accounts with usernames alluding to Ai Weiwei were blocked.^[21] On 30 March 2010, Hongkonger singer Gigi Leung blogged about the jailed Zhao Lianhai, an activist and father to a 2008 Chinese milk scandal victim. The post was later deleted by administrator.^[22]

However compared to other Chinese media formats, weibo services are considered freer.^[5] Criticism against the Chinese government is more widespread on Sina Weibo and other weibo services. After the July 2011 Wenzhou train collision, many dissatisfied posts concerning governmental corruption were posted throughout the Sina Weibo.^[23]

While weibo services might not always be in favor of government officials, many Chinese officials opened weibo accounts.^[13]

From 31 March 2012, the comment function of Sina Weibo was shut down for three days, along with Tencent QQ.^[24][25]

In May 2012 Sina Weibo introduced new restrictions on the content its 300 million users can post.^[26]

Cultural effect[link]

Livery Airplane[link]

On 8 June 2011, Tianjin Airlines unveiled an Embraer E-190 jet in special Sina Weibo livery and named it "Sina Weibo (Hao)" (新浪微博号). It is the first commercial airplane to be named after a website in China.^[27]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Sina Weibo website
• Other versions of Sina Weibo: Traditional character, Taiwanese, Hongkongese
• Official clients for various platforms: Android phones, Android tablets, Blackberry, iPhone & iPod touch, iPad, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile & Windows Phone 7 devices

Feng Shaofeng (born October 7, 1978), born Feng Wei (simplified Chinese: 冯威; traditional Chinese: 馮威; pinyin: Féng Wēi), also known as William Feng, is a Chinese actor. He is currently an artist under the management of Huayi Brothers.

Early life[link]

Feng was born in Shanghai, China as the only child of an affluent family. His father is in the textile business.^[1] Strongly influenced by his artistic mother, Feng began taking violin lessons and participated in many extracurricular activities when he was a child. Upon graduating from high school, he applied to the Shanghai Theater Academy and was accepted with scholarship.^[2]

Career[link]

Feng graduated from the Shanghai Theater Academy in 2001 and began his acting career in the same year. He has appeared in several television series, including Boy and Girl, Wind and Cloud 2, Assassinator Jing Ke, Sigh of His Highness, and The Conquest.

In 2007, Feng gained more attention after starring in a grand production drama by Hong Kong's TVB and mainland China's CCTV, The Drive of Life, in which he and Myolie Wu acted as a couple. They were given the nickname, "Fenolie", for their performance in the series. In 2010, Feng played the role of Liu Zhang and was again paired up with Myolie Wu in Meiren Xinji. In 2011, Feng played the role of Yinsi in the television series Palace.

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• (Chinese) Feng Shaofeng's official blog on Sina.com
• (Chinese) Feng Shaofeng on Sina Twitter

Yang Mi (born September 12, 1986) is a Chinese actress and singer. She is noted for her roles as Guo Xiang and Tang Xuejian respectively in the television series The Return of the Condor Heroes (2006) and Chinese Paladin 3 (2009). She has now gained even greater popularity from her breakthrough role as Luo Qingchuan in Palace (2011).^[2] Yang is also a student in Beijing Film Academy's Performance Institute.

Personal life[link]

In 1990, 4 year old Yang Mi started acting in Director Chen Jia Lin's TV series "Tang Ming Huang", this was her first step to being an actor. Later, "Tang Ming Huang" became a very famous TV series, and Yang Mi was that cute little girl that acted as Princess Xian Ning. In 1992, she acted with Liu Xiao Lin Tong in TV series "Hou Wa" and won the 14th "Flying Award" and the 12th "Golden Eagle Award" for "Best Children's Series" prize. But at that time, Yang Mi was still a six year old kid that still didn't understand the importance of winning prizes. After, Yang Mi concentrated in studying and at the same time, she modeled for a famous magazine "Duan Li". Until Yang Mi was 18, she starred as a classic character "Guo Xiang" in a Chinese novel "Shen Diao Xia Lu" and became famous, her out standing acting made her more famous than the lead roles in this TV series. 

In 2005, Yang Mi attended the casting for the CCTV drama "Wang Zhao Jun", she defeated Fan Bing Bing, Li Bing Bing and other domestic actors and starred the lead role as Wang Zhao Jun. In the same year, Yang Mi was accepted into the bachelor class of The Beijing Film Academy with the highest score among all students that year. In 2008, Yang Mi starred the lead role "Tang Xue Jian" in TV series "Xian Jian San". She acted 2 roles with completely different personalities and had a big success. In just one summer, her fans grew from 40 thousand to 120 thousand. This Drama became Yang Mi's big turning point in her acting career. 2011's Magnolia Award had choice awards voted by several networks. Voting started from May 13 to June 9, the total number of people that voted was more than 280 million with micro blogging comments over 350,000. That night, Yang Mi won the title of "The Most Popular Actress" with the most votes. In early 2012 Yang revealed that she is in a relationship with actor and singer Hawick Lau.^[3][4]

Career[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2011)

Yang began acting at the age of four. She played a minor role as Beggar So's daughter in King of Beggars (1992), which starred Stephen Chow as the titular character. In the late 2000s, Yang rose to fame for her roles in television series such as The Return of the Condor Heroes (2006) and Chinese Paladin 3 (2009). Her popularity increased after she starred as Luo Qingchuan in Palace (2011). Her increase in popularity from her performance in Palace helped land her a role in Painted Skin: The Resurrection, a sequel to Gordon Chan's 2008 film Painted Skin.^{[citation needed]} In 2010 she participated in Empires of the Deep, a Chinese-American co-produced film with a budget of US$100 million. In 2011, Mei Ah Entertainment announced that it will be producing four tailored-made films (Great Wudang, Chinese Princess Turandot, Windseeker, and Butterfly Cemetery) for Yang with a total investment of 300 million yuan for the four films due to the box office success of the horror film Mysterious Island (2011), which starred Yang. In 2012 Yang stated that she will be producing for the first time in her career, and her project will be a Chinese version of the American television series Gossip Girl, with Chinese Girl as a possible working title.^[5]

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

^{[14] [15]}

Discography[link]

• 2012: Close to me

Accolades[link]

• 2012-04 Sixteenth Global Chinese Music Channel "The Best Cross-Border Singer in the Mainland" (winning)
• 2012-03 The Second 2012 Music Film Festival "Film Actress With The Most Commercial Value" (winning)
• 2012-01 Song List 2011 Beijing Pop Music Awards "Annual Most Popular Newcomer (Female)" (winning)
• 2012-01 2011 Shopping Guide · Fashion Festival "Star of The Year (winning)
• 2012-01 2011 Shopping Guide · Fashion Festival "Annual TV Actress " (winning)
• 2012-01 2011 Sina Micro Blogging Night Network Festival "Micro Blogging Queen" (winning)
• 2012-01 2011 Sina Micro Blogging Night Network Festival "The Most Influential TV Actress" (winning)
• 2012-01 2011 So Hu Video TV Festival "The Most Popular Online Actress (winning)
• 2011-12 Beijing Television Cultural Decade Influence Festival "Rookie of The Year Award" (winning)
• 2011-12 2011 An Hui Satellite TV National Drama Festival "2011's Most Popular Actor (winning)
• 2011-12 (The 2011 Multi-suns Award) The Top 100 TV Series Awards Ceremony "The Best TV Series Theme Song" Love's Support (winning)
• 2011-10 2011 New Forces Festival "The Most Popular Film Actress" Far Cry (winning)
• 2011-08 2011 Music Film Festival "Asia-Pacific Region's Most Popular Actor (winning)
• 2011-08 2011 Fashion Power "Annual Most Popular Actress (winning)
• 2011-06 The 17th Shanghai Television Festival "Magnolia" award, the audience voted most popular actress award " (winning)
• 2011-06 Fourth Network Influence "The 2010 Top Ten Film and Television Actors" Palace Lock Heart Jade (winning)
• 2011-05 Seventeenth Magnolia Shanghai TV Festival "Best Actress"(Nominations)
• 2011-04 Fifteenth Annual Global Chinese Music Channel (Asian Influence Ceremony) "The Best TV Series" Palace Lock Heart Jade (winning)
• 2011-03 2011 Fifth Ceremony of Entertainment "Particular Noticed Leaping Star" Palace Lock Heart Jade (winning)
• 2011-03 2011 MSN Fashion Night Annual Award Ceremony "The MSN Xing Yue Fashion Star (winning)
• 2011-03 2011 Oriental Film Festival "(TV Series) Most Popular Actress of The Year" (winning)
• 2011-03 Youku Television Index Festival "Most Popular Actress Award" (winning)
• 2010-12 2010 winds competition "Having New Annual Fashion"(winning)
• 2010-04 2010 Drama and Internet festival in the spring "Most Network Vitality Drama (top5) " Paladin 3 (winning)
• 2008-08 7th China Golden Eagle TV Art Festival "Best Actress" Wang Zhaojun (Nominations)
• 2007-06 Third drama Billboard Award for Best New Artist (winning)
• 2007-04 Forbes 2007 Personality of the Year of Chinese cultural and Recreational Sports Industry "The Most Potential" (winning)
• 2007-04 Third 2006 Chinese Film Stars list (top 10) (winning)
• 1993 Eleventh Golden Eagle Award for "Best Children Series, Thirteenth Flying Award for "Best Children's Series"
• 1994 Fourteenth Flying Award for "Best Children's Series" second prize

References[link]

External links[link]

• (Chinese) Yang Mi's official website
• (Chinese) Yang Mi's page on Sina.com
• (Chinese) Yang Mi's blog on Sina.com
• (Chinese) Yang Mi's official Hong Kong website
• (Chinese) Yang Mi on Baidu Baike

Nina Dobrev
Dobrev at PaleyFest 2010's The Vampire Diaries night at the Saban Theatre in 2010
Born	Nina Constantinova Dobreva[1] (1989-01-09) January 9, 1989 (age 23)[1] Sofia, Bulgaria
Nationality	Bulgarian-Canadian
Occupation	Actress, model
Years active	2006–present

Nina Dobrev (born Nina Constantinova Dobreva; January 9, 1989)^[1] is a Bulgarian-born Canadian actress and model. She played the role of Mia Jones, the single teenage mother, on Degrassi: The Next Generation, from the show's sixth to ninth season. She currently stars as Elena Gilbert and Katherine Pierce on The CW television teen drama, The Vampire Diaries.

Personal life[link]

Dobrev at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival

Nina Dobrev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and moved to Canada at the age of two, where she was raised in Toronto, Ontario. She speaks fluent French, English, and Bulgarian. She has an older brother, Alexander; her father is a computer specialist and her mother is an artist.^[1]

Dobrev attended J. B. Tyrrell Sr. Public School, where she started ballet and jazz classes, and competed in rhythmic gymnastic.^[1] Then, she attended and Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in Scarborough, Ontario and Ryerson University in Toronto, majoring in sociology. She left in 2008 to pursue her acting career.^[2]

While working on the show, she began dating her Vampire Diaries co-star Ian Somerhalder.^[3][4]

Career[link]

Modeling jobs led to commercials, which then turned into film auditions. Shortly thereafter, she booked roles in feature films, including Fugitive Pieces, Away from Her, Never Cry Werewolf, and the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. She starred in a number of Lifetime original movies. She also was in an MTV movie called The American Mall on CTV. She is currently starring in The CW's drama The Vampire Diaries, playing the dual role of Katherine Pierce, a vampire loved by two human brothers during the American Civil War, and Katherine's doppelgänger Elena Gilbert, a human who is caught between the same two brothers, now vampires, Damon and Stefan Salvatore.^[5]

She also had a minor role in the erotic thriller Chloe, theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010.^[6] The film had enjoyed commercial success and became director Atom Egoyan's biggest moneymaker ever.^[7]

In April 2011, she was cast as Candace in the film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, alongside Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Paul Rudd.^[8] Shooting began in May of that year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and she completed her scenes on June 27, 2011.^[9]

Philanthropy[link]

In September 2011, Dobrev co-hosted We Day alongside Joe Jonas.^[10] We Day is organized by Free the Children. Dobrev also designed a T-Shirt^[11] with Me to We Style, which gives 50% of its profits to Free the Children.^[12]

Filmography[link]

Dobrev at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con.

Accolades[link]

Dobrev at the 2011 MuchMusic Video Awards

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nina Dobrev

• Nina Dobrev at the Internet Movie Database
• Nina Dobrev on Twitter