
Twitter is now worth less than its Chinese clone - dragonbonheur
https://www.techinasia.com/twitter-worth-less-than-weibo-ouch
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siculars
People keep talking about Chinese everything. At the risk of being downvoted
into oblivion let me ask you... would you use a Chinese email provider?
Chinese Facebook clone? Chinese Twitter clone? I don't know about you, but I'd
think twice before feeding my child Chinese formula or taking a flight in a
Chinese made airplane. Physical products are one thing but informational
products are clearly another.

China's reach is China. They may have a billion person market but last I
checked that was only 1/7th the world. I'd venture to say that most folks
would rather use some other option than something made in China.

~~~
StavrosK
> would you use a Chinese email provider? Chinese Facebook clone? Chinese
> Twitter clone?

I'd use it more readily than I'd use the american counterpart. I have to
travel to the US sometimes, but not so much in China, so China knowing things
about me affects me much less.

> I don't know about you, but I'd think twice before feeding my child Chinese
> formula or taking a flight in a Chinese made airplane.

As others said, yeah, you're already doing those things. Everything is made in
China.

> China's reach is China.

That's why you never see "made in China" stickers on anything.

> They may have a billion person market but last I checked that was only 1/7th
> the world.

That's also the largest country in the world, and it's the only market you can
say that for. The US is 1/20th of the world.

~~~
endisukaj
> I'd use it more readily than I'd use the american counterpart. I have to
> travel to the US sometimes, but not so much in China, so China knowing
> things about me affects me much less.

Why does traveling in the US and the US knowing things about you affect you?

> As others said, yeah, you're already doing those things. Everything is made
> in China.

Not by Chinese companies though. Individual parts are made there, but they are
designed by non-Chinese companies and the manufacturing process is overseen by
these companies.

> That's why you never see "made in China" stickers on anything.

See my last point.

> That's also the largest country in the world, and it's the only market you
> can say that for. The US is 1/20th of the world.

Last time I checked, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (not to mention Apple
products and Google) were used outside the US as well. I don't think anyone in
Europe uses a Chinese Facebook clone or Twitter clone.

~~~
StavrosK
> Why does traveling in the US and the US knowing things about you affect you?

Because I can be detained by a country (or denied entry) much more easily when
I am in the country than when I am not.

> Not by Chinese companies though. Individual parts are made there, but they
> are designed by non-Chinese companies and the manufacturing process is
> overseen by these companies.

I don't believe that "Chinese company" automatically equals "crap". Xiaomi
makes some of the best products I've ever used (and they definitely have the
best quality to price ratio of anyone), my Huawei phone is amazing, everything
I bought from Ali has been good, etc.

> Last time I checked, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (not to mention Apple
> products and Google) were used outside the US as well. I don't think anyone
> in Europe uses a Chinese Facebook clone or Twitter clone.

The western world uses those products. I would be surprised if nobody outside
China uses them. Maybe they don't, I don't know the WeChat penetration numbers
for countries outside China...

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inimino
"Chinese clone" makes a catchy headline but is pretty far from an accurate
characterization.

~~~
tribaal
As someone who is ignorant of said "clone", I feel compelled to ask:

What would be an accurate characterization?

I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
inimino
"Microblogging platform" is pretty accurate. Calling it a clone is kind of
like calling Bing a Google clone. Yes, they are both search engines, but no.

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faitswulff
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that 140 Chinese characters
contains way more information than 140 Latin characters. Then again, even
Weibo raised its character limit to 2000 characters.

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wfeui3
Comparing apples and melons.

Weibo has very strong payment system.

~~~
janekm
I wouldn't consider the Weibo payment system "strong"... it seems to be based
on alipay and I've never heard of anyone using it instead of Wechat or Alipay.
But other than that indeed Weibo is now very different from twitter, they've
continued to evolve while twitter has staid essentially the same for all these
years... 140 character limit and all.

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yeukhon
This kind of comparison is dull. It may be worth less for whatever reason, but
the Twitter brand is still so much more recognizable at a global scale. When
you go to a job fair outside of mainland China and you see, Twitter, Tecent,
Sina and Baidu there, which one would you prefer to visit first?

~~~
nullnilvoid
Tecent for sure. WeChat is years ahead of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. It
is the future.

