Microblogging in China in spreading the news quickly and discussing and evaluating government response. In 2012, there were 309 million people microblogging in China. "Wei boke" (微博客) and "weixing boke" (微型博客), commonly abbreviated as "weibo" (微博), are Chinese words for "microblog". A China-based microblogging service often names itself a weibo by putting it after the name of the service (e.g. Tencent Weibo, Sina Weibo). A similar word "围脖" () is used as Internet slang for "weibo". Fanfou () is the earliest notable weibo service. It was launched in Beijing on May 12, 2007 by the co-founder of Xiaonei (now Renren) Wang Xing ().
Tencent Weibo of QQ, Tencent doesn't intend to launch Tencent Weibo at a strategic level, but as a marketing tactic to curb competitors. Many celebrities are Tencent Weibo users, including, Ma Huateng, Zhou Hongyi, Liu Xiang and Jet Li. Initially only QQ users could register Tencent Weibo account corresponding to their own QQ number. Weibo accounts are not automatically registered for QQ users, they need to log in Tencent Weibo page for registration. Email address can be used for registration (formerly only QQ email address were supported). Posts can be shortened into an url.cn domain name. Each user can follow up to