Sina Weibo + Microsoft Outlook Integrations

Sina Weibo?

Sina Weibo, formerly known as Weibo, is a Chinese micro blogging website, similar to Twitter. Launched on August 23, 2009, Weibo has become one of the most influential social networking sites in China. As of April 2013, Sina Weibo has more than 300 million registered users and 70 million active daily users, with an average of 100 million tweets per day. It is operated by Sina Corporation, headquartered in Beijing’s Haidian District.

Microsoft Outlook?

Microsoft Outlook is a personal information management application that helps organize and manage emails, meetings, contacts, and schedules via a computer or mobile device. The program works with email services from companies such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo!, as well as Microsoft Exchange email servers. It also features a calendar to keep track of due dates and appointments. In recent years, Microsoft Outlook has also added features to help manage the user’s social network presence on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Integration of Sina Weibo and Microsoft Outlook

Recently, Microsoft Corp. announced that it was working with China-based Internet service provider Tencent Hpdings Ltd. to integrate its popular email program Outlook with the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo. The integration will allow users to see information about friends’ activities on both sites in the same place. The announcement was made during a briefing at Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen last week.

Microsoft said that Tencent would be the first company to integrate its services with Outlook. In addition to the integration with Weibo, other social networking services such as Facebook and Flickr would also be integrated into Outlook in the future. Users would be able to check their friends’ status updates from different social networks in one place. The integration would also enable them to receive notifications from their friends who are using Sina Weibo and share their own status updates there as well.

The two companies had previously cplaborated on other projects as well. Notably, Outlook users can log into multiple accounts simultaneously through Windows Live ID. Tencent has also released mobile applications for both Windows Mobile and Android platforms that integrate with the Outlook service so users can check their mailboxes on their smartphones or tablets. The latest move could give Microsoft a boost in its battle against rival Google Inc., which owns the world’s largest online communication service, Gmail. Last year, Google launched Google Buzz, a social networking service that allows Gmail users to share photos and videos with their friends. However, many users found it confusing and difficult to navigate because it lacked a clear distinction between personal and business contacts and information that was shared with specific groups was visible to all Gmail users. Since Gmail users already have access to Facebook’s social network through Google Friend Connect, Google Buzz did not catch on and was abandoned soon after its launch. Meanwhile, Facebook continues to be integrated into new products at a rapid pace, including iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S and BlackBerry Messenger version 6.0 for Android phones.

Benefits of Integration of Sina Weibo and Microsoft Outlook

With the integration of Sina Weibo and Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft could achieve several goals:

• Users could save time spent on managing multiple accounts for Facebook, Twitter and other social networks; 2. More people might switch from Gmail to Outlook given its improved integration with social network services; 3. Microsoft could gain more exposure in China where Gmail is still widely used; 4. Microsoft could generate more revenue through advertisements since more people might use Outlook due to its integration with social networks; 5. Users of Outlook can get more relevant ads based on their social network activities; 6. Through this cplaboration, both companies can increase their market shares in China.

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