Twitter remains blocked in China, but that has not stopped Twitter-like activity.Similar to other foreign Web 2.0 services that the government keeps out, China’s vibrant web sector has created domestic alternatives.
This graph from CIC Data shows that almost 40% of the online buzz they found around the Toyota recall on the day that Toyota president Akio Toyoda spoke in China about the issue came from Sina’s micro-blog.
Note that this is a measure of volume, not impact. A well considered posting on a particular blog or forum may well have had more impact. But it does show that micro-blogs are growing in importance in China for breaking news events.
As I blogged earlier, the Chinese-language is in some ways better suited to Twitter than English: Twitter in Chinese actually means “Blog”. If you INSIST on looking at Twitter usage in China, here’s a posting I did about the demographics of Twitter users in China.
(Disclosure: I run Ogilvy’s Social Media practice for APAC and in that role have often partnered with CIC on projects.)
