Do WeChat or do Weibo in China’s febrile social media market? We do neither. At least, neither network is a reason to buy its owner – Tencent and Sina, respectively – even as it becomes clearer that WeChat’s private messaging service is pulling ahead of Weibo’s public microblogging model.		在中国热火朝天的社交媒体市场，我们使用微信(WeChat)还是微博(Weibo)？都不用。至少，这两个网络都不是投资其所有者——腾讯(Tencent)和新浪(Sina)——的理由，尽管越来越明显的是，微信的私人信息服务正在赶超微博的公共微博客模式。
Weibo, China’s Twitter, seems to be becoming its MySpace. Sina’s Nasdaq-listed shares are down a fifth so far this year. Weibo’s user numbers would make any western social network envious but they fell 9 per cent last year – from 2012’s 308m – and risk being overtaken by WeChat’s 272m. A study from Britain’s Daily Telegraph has also suggested that the most active Weibo users dropped off even faster, by almost three-quarters. This is a sign that “Big Vs” – accounts of famous bloggers with millions of followers – have felt the chill of the government crackdown on public spreading of “rumours”. So it might appear WeChat’s relatively private, politics-free approach is a safer bet.		中国的推特(Twitter)——微博，似乎已逐渐成为中国的MySpace。今年迄今，新浪在纳斯达克(Nasdaq)上市的股票价格下跌了五分之一。微博的用户数会令任何一家西方社交媒体网络艳羡，但去年他们相对于2012年的3.08亿减少了9%，而且面临着被拥有2.72亿用户的微信赶超的危险。英国《每日电讯报》(Daily Telegraph)的一项研究也表明，最活跃的微博用户放弃更快，他们的人数减少了近四分之三。这意味着“大V”们（那些拥有上百万粉丝的知名博主）已经感受到政府打击公开传播“谣言”的阵阵寒意。微信的相对私密、不谈政治的模式貌似更为安全。
The reality is more subtle. Sina has been hard-pressed to profit from its users, whatever their number. Weibo’s high-margin mobile services, such as music, have failed to take over from low-margin, distracting online advertising. Services as a share of revenue fell to 11 per cent in the first nine months of 2013, from 16 per cent in 2012. The amount of advertising on each Weibo page is a reason for users to leave.		现实情况更加微妙。新浪一直苦于无法从它的用户（无论数量多么巨大）中赚取利润。微博利润率较高的移动服务，比如音乐，始终未能取代低利润的、分散注意力的在线广告。服务在收入中所占比重在2013年前9个月下降到11%，低于2012年16%的比重。单个微博页面上的广告数量，是用户离开微博的原因之一。
WeChat is free to use and ads are scarce. That significant revenue will come in time is one of many expectations built into Tencent’s price of 40 times forward earnings. Tencent is more diversified than Sina – micropayments and gaming, for example, already provide a big chunk of its revenues. Sina, at a mere 35 times earnings, has fewer strings to its bow. But that does not mean WeChat ascendance is not already built into Tencent’s price.		微信的使用是免费的，广告也很少。人们的预期是，时机成熟就会产生可观收入——这就是为什么腾讯股价40倍于预期盈利。腾讯比新浪更加多元化——以小额支付和游戏为例，两者已经贡献了总收入中的一大块。新浪的股价仅有35倍市盈率，手中那张弓的弦也更少。但这并不意味着微信的崛起已经被计入腾讯的股价。