Microblogging in China The website's layout, API, and mode of use was highly similar to Twitter, which was created earlier in 2006. Fanfou's users increased from 0.3 million to 1 million in the first half of 2009. The users included HP China, the "Southern Weekly", artist Ai Weiwei, writer Lian Yue () and TV commentator Liang Wendao (). Some other weibo services, such as Jiwai, Digu, Zuosa and Tencent's Taotao were launched in 2006-2009. After the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, the CPC government shut down most of the domestic weibo services, including Fanfou and Jiwai. Many popular non China-based microblogging services such as
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