Tracing Weibo (2009–2019): The commercial dissolution of public communication and changing politics

“Crazy Jack” and the “Gay CEO”: Visions, Entrepreneurship, and the Chinese State in the New Digital Economy

“…How have their businesses developed, and what do these trajectories tell us about the Chinese digital economy and the role of the state? This limited case study will help offer a more nuanced understanding of the characteristics of the Chinese digital economy, and it corroborates similar recent case studies, for example, on the development and commercialisation of Weibo (Jia and Han, 2020).…”

“…But at the same time, China's digital developments remain dependent on these companies, which creates a complex co-dependency. The examples and trajectories of Alibaba and Blue City discussed in this article are mirrored in the development of Weibo (Jia and Han, 2020), and can serve to illustrate a general trajectory of the digital economy in China. Future research will need to address the evolving and complex adaptation to both market demands and political pressures and to technological developments and new challenges.…”

“…From having been a marginalised and suppressed group, the gay community, although still facing many prejudices and difficulties, is today seen as having a huge consumer potential due to the growing "rainbow" economy. The development of Blue City furthermore, like in the case of Weibo (Jia and Han, 2020), shows how online spaces for socialisation and communication have increasingly become spaces for consumption and how life-streamers engage in performative labour that bring profits to the company.…”

“…Leong, 2018;Miao and Chan, 2020;Wang, 2020a;Yu, 2018), and how companies through their policies and platforms shape user behaviour (e.g. Chen et al, 2018;Jia and Han, 2020;Stockmann and Luo, 2017).…”

Research on Customer Value Measurement

“…As a combination of the Facebook and Twitter, Weibo dominates the Chinese marketplace and have some opportunities to build mutually profitable relationships with different companies. According to the data of Weibo form 2009 and 2019 provided by the researcher Jia, Weibo has over 497 million monthly active users and there are lot of diverse services and products provided by Weibo [4]. Therefore, it will be very attractive and powerful to make some advertisement on Weibo for different customers.…”