5 awesome things Weibo does that Twitter doesn’t
Do you still think Weibo is just a clone of Twitter? Think again!
What can be had in Weibo than can’t be had in Twitter? Well, generally speaking, Weibo is like a cross between Twitter and Facebook. However, what began life in a similar manner to Twitter and other preceding microblogging platforms in China, has since evolved into an entity unto itself.
Below we outline a list of some of the awesome things Weibo does that Twitter doesn’t.
1. Weibo allows you to support content producers directly
Weibo’s tipping button
Remember those ‘Donate with Paypal’ buttons you used to see on every second self-hosted blog or website? Well, Weibo’s brought them back and now you can donate directly to content producers through the platform. In today’s world, many content producers exist solely in the realm of social media. Revenue sharing, merchandising and direct donations are all viable ways of making sure good content keeps getting produced.
2. Weibo’s down with long posts
Gone is that pesky 140-character limit. Weibo allows you to post at length to your heart’s content.
3. Weibo brings some of that MySpace flavor to its pages
Weibo allows users to post songs directly to their posts in much the same way as that bygone giant of yesteryear, MySpace.
Turns out this feature is the result of a pretty convenient partnership between music streaming service Xiami and Weibo, almost guaranteeing that you’ll be able to find any song title you can imagine and link it up to your page.
This aspect provides Weibo with some of the appeal that social music-sharing platforms like Soundcloud and even Facebook have successfully found with music fans.
4. Weibo lets you review movies within the platform
This here is pretty unique to Weibo.
Search for a movie, and you’ll be taken to a page — much like the same page you would see for a Twitter hashtag — where you can read reviews, comments and ratings.
Be an amateur film critic, write a scathing lengthy review, give your 2 stars and contribute to the public discussion!
5. Weibo has built-in emojis
Check out all the emotion you can infuse with Weibo’s Emoji categories! Eat your heart out, Twitter!
This article is written by Rohan Malhotra.
Rohan Malhotra is our Beijing-based ‘laowai’ writer/editor. Rohan likes to write about a variety of things, but the things that most appeal are: e-vehicles, opensource, Bitcoin, and LBS services. Follow him on twitter: @beyondrohen.
Originally published at www.allchinatech.com on November 23, 2015.
