Sitting with heads bowed over phablets around company has become socially acceptable in China and the main culprit is, more often than not, WeChat; or Weixin in Chinese. The latest social media arrival on the mainland, WeChat has been credited with single-handedly supplanting Weibo, yesterday’s social media sensation that shook China mainly through citizen journalism. For the uninitiated, Weibo and WeChat are to China what Twitter and WhatsApp are to the rest of the world, and much more. Anecdotal evidence seems to point to the death of Weibo by WeChat. Quite a number of Chinese friends have remarked that they hardly use Weibo now that they have WeChat. But surely the Middle Kingdom has room enough for both?

In a country where Facebook and Twitter are banned, there is a huge market for accepted substitutes. WeChat and Weibo have come up tops, making all other contenders look passé. Both are more feature-laden than their Western counterparts. Weibo is often referred to as a “Twitter-like microblog”. Yet, it is more like Facebook in function and Twitter in form. WeChat, to devotees, is a WhatsApp with everything they’ve ever dreamed of, including a walkie-talkie function (WhatsApp has since caught up and also introduced this feature) for the repetitive strain injury afflicted and the plain lazy. Search functions and QR code scanning provide added avenues for the addition of friends. The WeChat “Moments” wall appeals to the inner exhibitionist and voyeur, and many Chinese people broadcast and devour every moment within their friendship circle.

How do the rivals stack up?

In terms of numbers, how do the rivals stack up? Official user data is woefully absent. From ballparks on various news sites, WeChat boasts well over 300 million users, of which one third are outside of China. WeChat has already won fame in the international arena, although Weibo would say they never intended to join the fray anyway. Not bad for technology giant Tencent’s new venture that’s merely three years old. In comparison, Whatsapp has around 500 million users. Weibo, as in Sina Weibo, claims a staggering 615 million users, although it is hard to ascertain how many are actually active. Not to be confused with Tencent Weibo, which was never a serious contender, despite coming from the makers of QQ.

Here, the limitations of Weibo become painfully obvious. Even the central government has cautioned against microblogs with hidden agendas, as rumours of Jiang Zemin’s demise proved. Weibo was supposed to come under the “Real Name System” some time ago, but this was never implemented consistently among existing users. In these days of fake account-generating software, WeChat accounts are linked to mobile numbers or Facebook accounts to reduce this possibility to some extent. Weibo has followed suit for new signups but the damage is probably past the point of repair.

Reasons for the potential demise of Weibo

In its glory days, Weibo’s claim to fame came through online exposés ranging from corruption to environmental issues that in the past could easily stayed buried. Citizen journalism ran unbridled, providing salacious online coverage of major events, like Bo Xilai’s case. Eventually, Weibo awoke a sleeping dragon, which unfortunately led to its demise. Crippling censorship measures took hold, following the Wenzhou train crash. Sina was required to self-censor through software detecting and deleting posts with sensitive keywords and to maintain a stable of in-house censors for a second weeding of coded posts. “Slanderous” posts attracting 5,000 or more views could land the poster in jail. Recently, Sina was slapped with a 815,000 USD fine over the publishing of “unhealthy and indecent” content, which may or may not be a coincidence.

In comes WeChat, where many of the political discussions have shifted. The ability to select the recipients of one’s message does give the perception of greater online privacy, although at the expense of reach. However, most users harbor no online ambitions of fame or political agendas, so giving their two cents worth within their circle of friends is satisfying enough. Saving a ton on mobile charges is an added bonus. In fact, WeChat is such a major threat to government-owned mobile carriers that talks of charging for a previously free service surfaced last year. Resolution of this issue is nowhere in sight but Tencent has gallantly vowed not to pass on costs to consumers. In fact, Tencent’s persistent inability to monetize WeChat is rather troubling, given that the technology giant is no community service provider.

Sina, on the other hand, goes along the traditional route of advertising revenue and has lent the platform to services such as taxi-booking, ordering at MacDonalds and managing investments on the go. Sina’s recent listing on Nasdaq also points to a certain amount of confidence in its buoyancy and ability to evolve with the ever-changing online world.

The only aspect where WeChat enjoys an absolute advantage over Weibo would be among first time Internet users. One thing in common among both young and elderly users is their initial forays into cyberspace are more painless on a mobile device, for which WeChat is tailor-made. Sure, Weibo has an app, but WeChat seems to have conquered the phone messaging market. Compared to WhatsApp’s bare-bones approach, WeChat’s features are user-pleasing yet costly to Tencent which seems reluctant to go the way of advertising revenue.

At the end of the day, the question of whether WeChat will eventually replace Weibo will be answered by what the consumer wants. WeChat is definitely great for private discussions without the burden of SMS charges. Censorship aside, it is easy to forget there are lots of non-political reasons for logging into Weibo. Celebrities, or “Big V’s”, mostly maintain Weibo accounts for slavering fans. Sellers, especially luxury brands, likewise use Weibo as a social marketing tool. Weibo can also provide a constant feed of trending topics and the searing comments from Netizens that ensue. WeChat on the other hand does not have mass broadcasting functions. The early popularity of Weibo also brought fame to certain social commentators whose followers eagerly devour their morsels of “wisdom” which are unlikely to migrate to WeChat. Chinese people are logging into Weibo less often, but that does not mean they don’t log in at all.

Technology commentators feel that WeChat’s potential for mass dissemination, and hence marketing, is limited: but marketing is not always a numbers game. Reach on WeChat is limited by one’s circle of friends but there is nothing to stop one’s friends from re-posting. Besides, niche and targeted marketing is always more efficient as WeChat users enjoy the power to edit their circle of friends and friends tend to have the same tastes. Followers on Weibo, on the other hand, cannot be dropped and you could find your account flooded with “add” requests. Personally, I’ve witnessed puppies, furniture and household items being sold very quickly on WeChat. Having at least a mutual friend or two in between, offers quite a bit of transactional reassurance in the vast online world of strangers.

In a country of more than 600 million Internet users (the US has a population of only 319 million), “WeChat or Weibo?” becomes a multi-million dollar question. It is undeniable that Weibo’s usage is dropping and WeChat’s is on the ascent. But is there any correlation in this? WeChat may have taken over Weibo’s social communication function but not its mass broadcasting function. The likelihood of WeChat supplanting Weibo entirely would be as small as WhatsApp obliterating Twitter.

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Keywords: Sina Weibo WeChat the Death of Weibo in China Weixin