Blog and microblog at Sina.com

I recently set up a Chinese language blog and microblog at Sina.com.

I did this was mainly because I noticed that my photo site was getting an enormous amount of traffic directed from various Chinese search engines, most notably Sohu and Baidu, and I wanted visitors from China who found my site that way to be able to stay up to date.  As you probably know, Twitter and Facebook are largely inaccessible in China, as are blogs like this one hosted at blogger.com.  Right now I am using my Sina blog and microblog mainly to post updates about my galleries.  Perhaps at some point I may translate some of my software reviews, or other random posts.

Setting up my account was pretty straightforward.  I suppose the main issue that will confront anyone curious about setting up a blog or microblog at Sina.com is that the user interface is in Chinese.  If you can't read Chinese, you're going to be out of luck.  Though you might be able to muddle through with Google Translate.

As far as I could tell, setting up an account from outside China didn't require a Chinese mobile phone number, or entry of a personal  identification number.  At least I was never asked for either.  When I dabbled with setting up an account last time I was in China, it did ask for a mobile phone number, and a personal identification number.  I guess they have different criteria according to whether you are inside or outside of China.

The user interface for the Sina.com blog and microblog is pretty slick.  I like it.  The blog is especially good for sharing photos because you can upload lots of them at a time.  When you click on the link to upload a picture, a dialog box comes up that gives an opportunity to upload or link to as many as 20 or so photos at a time.  When I want to write a post introducing a new gallery, and feature a 4-5 of my favorite photos from the new gallery, it is very easy to use.  The user interface is generally quite slick and easy to use.  I find it as easy to use as the blogger.com user interface, even though it is in Chinese, and I am not a native speaker of Chinese.

Sina.com's blog interface also displays the number of visitors to the blog.  If people are logged into Sina.com when they visit, it also displays thumbnails of their profile portraits, with most recent visitors listed first.  The count of total visitors doesn't seem entirely reliable since I noticed that even when I am logged in, it seems to count my own page loads.

Sina.com's microblog (新浪微博) is also pretty slick.  They really have it configured nicely for sharing individual photos.  Also I seem to have configured my Sina blog to automatically post to the microblog whenever there are new entries.  Sina.com also provides a very nice Android app for accessing a microblog that allows for sharing of pictures and so forth directly from the phone's gallery.  The app shows up alongside Facebook and other apps where you can post a photo directly.

Overall, if you can read Chinese, and for whatever reason want to have a blog and/or microblog that is easily accessible in China, the Sina services do seem to work pretty well.

I don't have too many followers yet, but we'll see.