Now Michael Phelps has a Weibo account

Image Crdit: Phelps Twitter Account

Michael Phelps is in Shanghai for the world 2011 swimming championships this weekend. He does not appear to be the best and that distinction goes to another free spirit who goes by the name of Ryan lochte. Phelps is on Twitter and Facebook where he keeps in touch with his fans, friends and followers. He is a frequent Twitter user as can be sen from his account. Since landing in China he was under the impression that he would not be able to use these social networking sites that have been banned in China. Apparently not so and since landing he has been tweeting constantly. Chinese fans have been using roundabout  methods to be able to read his tweets. He connected to Facebook and Twitter and found that he had access and just kept on tweeting, in addition to that he also has a weibo account.

We have already written about weibo which is a Chinese micro-blogging site much like Twitter. It has been built along the lines of Twitter and is huhgely popular in China. In fact some of Hollywood's biggies already have weibo account to reach out to this Chinese fans. In fact Tom Hanks has a weibo account and following him was Emma Watson. Phelps has earned himself a lot of Chinese fans who can now follow what he says on weibo.

Follow Michael Phelps on Twitter
Follow Ryan Lochte on Twitter

An original post by

Sociolatte

What is Weibo and how does it work

lately there have been some high profile American starts joining the Chinese microblogging site weibo. Weibo.com is a Twitter styled website built in China and catering to all Chinese speaking people. The site already has 140 million  users and growing, akin to a hybrid of Twitter and Facebook is has already become one of the most popular sites in China. 


The site is availbale in simplified and traditional Chinese characters. The site also has version catering to users from Malaysia, Hong kong and Taiwan. The growth of the service has now induced the same celebrities that made Twitter popular to now start using Weibo. If all reports are to be believed Emma Watson has joined the service after high-profile star Tam Hanks did. This is a logical thing to do if stars are to reach out to this growing number of fans in Chinese speaking countries. All this coming at a time when Google has launched their Social Networking site and drawing users away from Twitter and Facebook.


Some differences you will note is that the Chinese site does not stick to the 140 character limit the way Twitter does. Once you reach the site you see a timeline with the latest Tweets and a list of interesting people to follow. The Chinese site also boasts of a large number of celebrities who have joined the site. Chinese sites are growing in popularity and cannot be ignored, especially with the large fan base they have and an ever increasing interactive audience. 

An original post by

Sociolatte