Chapter 336: Weibo Night Battle: Sina Was So Desperate It Wanted to Call the Police

The Weibo Night ended, but the discussions had only just begun.

Centered on Weibo, award controversies, celebrity gossip, ceremony behind-the-scenes—various related hot searches kept emerging, and other platforms also saw massive discussions.

The scale and intensity were so great that platforms wanting to imitate it or already planning their own ceremonies felt frustrated.

Among them, Sina was the worst affected.

Thanks to its media advantages, in past years, Sina's Sina Ceremony had always been the event with the most entertainment elements and star power among internet platforms.

But this year, all the spotlight was stolen by Weibo, and worse, this year marked Sina's tenth anniversary.

Their tenth anniversary couldn't even match someone else's first…

But there was no way around it—Sina only had media resources, lacking film, television, advertising, and other resources.

Stars might lend face, but they were nowhere near as influential as Yi'an, let alone now that Weibo had risen and accumulated massive media resources.

Put simply, Yi'an was now a supercharged version of Sina; except for some legacy and channels, Sina was utterly outclassed everywhere.

Originally, during last year's financial crisis, Sina's stock performance had been poor.

Now, Sina Weike had launched to lukewarm reception, failing to threaten Weibo, instead seeing its own business steadily eroded by Weibo, with stock prices continuously falling; if next year still showed no clear signs of recovery, Sina's top management would likely face changes.

Sina's current CEO, Cao Zong, though instrumental in repelling Shengda's acquisition, had failed to lead Sina out of its predicament—just as they could replace leadership back then, they can do so now.

Immediately after Weibo Night, Sina convened a top-secret internal executive meeting to discuss next steps.

Not long after, Yan Li obtained the meeting minutes and final decisions of Sina's executive meeting.

During the meeting, Sina had considered whether to abandon Sina Weike and blogs and shift to other businesses.

For example, video websites—this industry was still on an upward trend and not yet saturated; Sina possessed a massive media lineup and user base, and using blogs and Sina Weike to drive traffic and transition was a promising direction.

But competition in this industry was also fierce.

Tudou and Youku were locked in brutal battles, Sohu and several others were watching closely, and rumors said Baidu and Tencent were considering entering too.

Broadband, storage, copyright, video creation support—this stuff burned money even more fiercely than the Weibo war.

The same applied to other directions: either too costly, or uncertain prospects, or too low returns, none able to reverse Sina's decline.

After endless debate, Sina Weike—what they were best at, had already invested heavily in, and had partially broken through—was, overall, one of Sina's best current options.

With support from some executives, Cao Zong, who already favored continuing Sina Weike, ultimately overruled all objections.

Fight Weibo to the death!

But Weibo was developing too fast; Sina Weike could barely keep up—fighting to the death required strategy, or it would just be stubborn stupidity.

For this, Cao Zong proposed three plans.

First, burn money.

Since they were already outmatched, not bleeding heavily meant certain defeat; they must burn money—Yi'an burns 100 million, Sina burns 200–300 million, using capital to close the gap.

Second, set traps, use underhanded tactics.

Weibo was the hottest, but also the most conspicuous; last year, Weibo had done many positive things, but due to some socially sensitive topics, it had drawn criticism—Sina could exploit this.

Shutting down Weibo was impossible—the scale and Yan Li's connections were too great—but making it suffer headaches for a while would still slow it down.

Official channels were one front, public perception was another—overall, operate from the shadows, dirty and tarnish Weibo.

Third, deploy on mobile.

The first two tactics were merely catching up and closing gaps; they might trouble Weibo, but couldn't seriously wound it.

Mobile was the decisive battlefront determining victory or defeat, and the very reason Sina was determined to fight to the death—if executed well, Sina Weike had a real chance to overtake Weibo on a curve; if failed, Sina Weike's fate was sealed.

"Pretty sneaky."

Yan Li flipped through the intelligence; frankly, none of the three tactics surprised him—he'd likely do the same if he were in their place.

But Sina's second tactic was dirtier than he'd ever be.

Do business as business—using this tactic was too dark; if you can use it, others can too; when you flee overseas, it'll be too late—some Pandora's boxes must never be opened.

Shaking his head, Yan Li pulled out his phone and made a call: "Get ready to move."

So far, Weibo had hardly targeted Sina Weike at all—after all, being in the lead, perfecting itself was the greatest strike.

Also, Yan Li felt Sina was indecisive; Weibo might win without fighting.

Under these circumstances, with intelligence systems gathering information, it was best to hold back—don't push them into a corner if they were already thinking of quitting.

Meanwhile, Yan Li had made preparations: if Sina quit, all would be well; if they chose to continue, he'd strike decisively.

Now that he knew Sina's intentions—and that they were this sneaky—Yan Li had no need to be polite.

…

On December 31, just two days after Weibo Night, Weibo officially announced updates to multiple features.

Weibo accounts could now apply to become "XX bloggers," unlocking long-form content functionality—meaning blogs could now be posted on Weibo.

Simultaneously, after unlocking long-form content, migration support was added: one-click import could transfer original high-quality blogs onto Weibo.

In other words, dig up the roots of blogs.

Weibo emphasized short, fast, punchy content, with its own unique advantages, but it also rejected content creators who specialized in long reviews, essays, tech articles, prose, history sharing, short stories, and so on.

These people couldn't showcase their strengths on Weibo, so they remained on blogs—or scattered to Douban, Tianya, and other platforms.

To be fair, they weren't mainstream, but each had their own small circles with considerable influence.

Gathered together, they represented decent traffic and a valuable addition to Weibo's content; most crucially, they could strike at blogs, Douban, Tianya, Tieba, and other platforms, further harvesting users comprehensively.

Correct—blogs were merely the front-line opponent; Weibo was also targeting Tieba, Douban, and Tianya, because these platforms shared certain similarities with Weibo.

They were also Weibo's rivals.

Among them, Tianya Forum was hit first—its functions of sharing, gossiping, discussing, and trending topics,

Weibo could replicate—and do faster and better.

Nowadays, many Tianya functions had been replaced by Weibo; large numbers of users had shifted to Weibo for information and discussion, causing traffic to plummet.

Tianya was still barely holding on, but had already begun shifting focus toward deep creation and serialized long-form content.

Now that Weike has enabled long-form content, its massive traffic advantage will inevitably attract a large number of creators, delivering a fatal blow to Tianya.

The battle between Weike and its rivals is far from over; platforms like Weike and Taotao have powerful backers behind them and won't collapse anytime soon.

Those without capital support will likely be the first casualties in this high-stakes showdown.

The second casualty will be Douban!

For film reviews, cultural discussions, fan interactions, and content creation, Weike can fully cover most of Douban's functions.

Douban's rating system hasn't yet gained widespread influence; Weike's rating system, backed by a far larger user base, will become the new standard for film and other reviews.

That's right—Douban means nothing to Weike, but it matters greatly to Yan Li and Yi An.

It's like controlling the judges' scoring—who wouldn't be tempted?

Compared to Tianya, which is doomed to decline, Douban may not be completely wiped out.

If it transforms effectively, it might become a gathering place for hardcore literary types, forming a niche circle far removed from the noise of the internet.

Tieba's fate won't be as dire as Douban's or Tianya's.

The first two have smaller user bases and monotonous functions, making them easy targets for Weike's attacks.

But Tieba is different—it's an interest-based community, more dispersed, with hardcore, deep, and highly vertical content, while Weike is a public square; their organizational structures are fundamentally different.

Added to that, Tieba has Baidu's backing; Weike might drain traffic and suppress it, but cannot replace Tieba.

This new feature, though seemingly simple, is in fact a large-scale harvest.

Coupled with the likely upcoming creation subsidies and other measures, if executed well, Weike could decisively kill or cripple blogs, Tianya, and Douban all at once.

Sina wants a decisive battle, does it?

Weike will strike first at its core—crush and cripple the blogs, severing its rear support and arm.

In addition to these features, Weike also announced cooperation with mobile manufacturers like Samsung and Nokia, and operators like China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, to launch a large-scale rollout of the Weike mobile app on January 1, 2009.

Previously, users could log into Weike via mobile and post via SMS, but it was cumbersome, with poor usability and experience; now, installing the Weike app makes it convenient and fast, granting access to most Weike functions.

In short, users can now browse Weike anytime, anywhere, on their phones!

To attract users to adopt the mobile platform, Weike will roll out a series of incentives.

Free phone credit, free data, free memberships, countless online and offline promotions, and more.

In short, within the shortest possible time, convert Weike's existing users to the mobile app, ensuring smartphone owners download and register to use the Weike mobile platform.

This plan isn't entirely aimed at Sina—even without Sina, on January 1, 2009, with the official arrival of the 3G era, Weike would still launch its preemptive strike on the mobile market.

This announcement is also a blow to Sina.

The clever tactics and shortcut overtakes you thought you had—Weike already knew them, and was even better prepared.

In addition, there are minor features that also exert some pressure on Sina, even copying one of Sina's own features still in testing.

And this is only the public move—behind the scenes, Yi An has begun deliberately spreading dirt about Sina's camp.