具有中国特色的互联网创新

飞雪寒冰

Most Western internet executives frown at the notion that Chinese internet companies are innovators. But what Sina, the country’s largest news portal, is doing with its microblog may change their minds.
对于中国互联网企业是创新者的说法，大多数西方互联网企业的高管会不以为然。但中国最大的新闻门户网站新浪(Sina)旗下微博服务的发展，或许会改变他们的看法。

Sina’s microblog, or Weibo, started in 2009 as little more than a Twitter clone – with Chinese characteristics in that it self-censors content, a necessary condition for any internet company that wishes to remain online in China.
于2009年推出的新浪微博，起初不过是Twitter的翻版——其中国特色是对内容的自我审查，任何互联网企业要想在中国的网络空间中生存下去，这是一个必要条件。

飞雪寒冰

Tencent, the world’s third-largest internet company by market capitalization, built China’s largest online user base by imitating ICQ, the instant messaging tool. and Baidu, China’s largest search engine, gained its dominant position in the Chinese online advertising market by creating a local version of what Google and Yahoo were doing.
全球市值第三大互联网企业腾讯(Tencent)是通过模仿即时通讯工具ICQ，培养出了中国最庞大的在线用户基础。而中国最大的搜索引擎百度(Baidu)能在中国互联网广告市场中占得主导地位，靠的也是开发谷歌(Google)和雅虎(Yahoo)相关服务的中国版本。

But following that initial spark from the US, some Chinese internet firms have been truly innovative in tweaking their business model in unique ways. Tencent was the first to succeed in this kind of business model innovation – it built a simple me-too tool into a social networking empire no rival managed to break into for years. Sina seems to be on the same path.
但在照抄了始自美国的创新想法之后，一些中国互联网企业真正做到了创新，改进其商业模式，使其具备了一些与众不同的特点。腾讯是第一个在这种商业模式创新方面取得成功的企业——它用简单的模仿手段打造出一个庞大的社交网络帝国，这么多年以来一直没有对手可以超越。现在新浪似乎也走上了同样的发展路径。

飞雪寒冰

But, as I report on ft.com, the service has now moved far beyond that. Over the past few weeks, the service has added a location-based service resembling Foursquare and an instant messaging tool. That comes in addition to social networking functions such as discussion groups and virtual meeting and market places – a mixture that makes Sina Weibo a more complete and varied social media platform than either Twitter or Facebook.
但正如我在ft.com上所报道的那样，此项服务现已取得了诸多突破。过去几周里，新浪微博增添了类似Foursquare的基于位置的服务(LBS)和一个即时通讯工具。此前，新浪微博已经具备了讨论组、虚拟会议和市场等社交网络功能——丰富的功能使得新浪微博无论是与Twitter还是Facebook相比，都是一种更加完善和多样化的社交媒体平台。

Make no mistake, the main pattern in the development of the internet industry in China is still copying ideas from the US – in the latest example, more than 1000 Groupon clones flooded the Chinese market even before the American original group buying website could get its own China version online.
不要搞错了，中国互联网行业发展的主要模式仍然是抄袭美国——最新的一个例是：在美国团购集团Groupon自己的中国网站上线前，中国市场上已涌现出了1000多个类似的团购网站。