YAM Magazine Weibo

So… after my Weibo Fail almost 2 months ago, I finally was able to setup the yammag Weibo account.

Except for the loading problems, which is a given in Chinese-based websites (because of the number of people?), Weibo seems to be pretty cool to use… even if I haven’t figure out all things yet.

One of them is that I can’t make the profile open to the public. People who are not logged into Weibo, get an invitation code… which I don’t really want. I want it to be open to the public, but no one seems to know what I mean.

If you already use Twitter, it’s easy to get use to Weibo~ but there are a few things that are kind cool/kinda not so cool in it. The first one that’s cool and not so cool at the same time is… use of emoticons. LOL I know people who don’t like them, and might find them odd using in a microblogging site-

BUT… Weibo isn’t really a microblog. It seems much more complex than Twitter.

The Good: What does Weibo have?

You can post stuff in 140 character or less… yes, and since I don’t weibo in Chinese, it would be the same. However, I find it odd that I almost never had an issue to create posts of less than 140 characters, while on Twitter I have to cut letters, take out words to make it fit. When I share on Weibo… it just… is~

Private messages are not exclusive to 140 characters, I think the top is 300 characters… which is a small email ;D

In Weibo, you can upload images, do polls, share music and videos directly from there, without using applications. So Weibo renders sites like ow.ly pretty much useless, because you can paste complete — and the most messiest — URLs in it, and it would automatically shorten it.

The site also lets you share other people’s posts… you know, retweet stuff – or forward items.

That’s pretty normal, but you can also comment directly below of an item, and you have the option to show or hide that comment you’ve made from your timeline. So in the end, you have a weibo post of a photo that gets 120 comments, and 500 FWDs… which works a little bit like Facebook, but goes beyond that… there’s just no way to know how many people forward your items on Facebook.

Weibo also has groups, like in Facebook. xD

You also get to add descriptive tags to your Weibo account, and you get medals for Weibo activities — I think you can get badges on MySpace now, but I can’t be 100% sure of that. xD

Also, if you like Chinese movies and music, almost everyone is on Weibo.

The Bad: What is Weibo missing?

I like that in Twitter, you don’t have to follow everyone. So instead of following 100 actors and 100 music groups, I can just add them to a list that I can check from time to time.

I don’t think you can do that in Weibo. You can add people to different lists after you begin following them. So unlike the YAM Magazine Twitter account, almost all our follows are singers/groups/actors on Weibo xD

Sorry, that’s all I can get from the few days. LOL

The Ugly: What Weibo needs to expand?

Right now, Weibo has a “language” dropdown menu with two language options… Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. xD

It would help a LOT if you could see the main interface in English, or other languages. Just the interface… the content is fine. One can manage using translation tools, but the interface gets all weird when you translate.

Also need better loading times outside China. Sometimes I need to reload the site 5 times before it gets a hearbeat. But then I think about all the people using the site, and think I should use it when everyone is asleep. LOL