Sina Weibo the domestic microblogging services including the first weibo service Fanfou. Many popular non-China-based microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook, and Plurk have been blocked from viewing since then. Sina's CEO Charles Chao considered this to be an opportunity. SINA Corporation launched the tested version of Sina Weibo on 14 August 2009. Basic functions including message, private message, comment and re-post were made possible in September 2009. A Sina Weibo–compatible API platform for developing third-party applications was launched on 28 July 2010. On 1 December 2010, the website experienced an outage, which administrators later said was due to the increasing numbers of
Sina Weibo and comments. Hashtags differ slightly, using a double-hashtag "#HashName#" method, since the lack of spacing between Chinese characters necessitates a closing tag. Users can own hashtags by requesting the monitoring of a certain hashtag from the Sinai Weibo. Users can send an application and receive an answer from the company within one to three days. Once the Users own a hashtag they will have access to a wide variety of functions available only to them. The moderators need to stay active if they posts less than 1 post in a calendar week, they will be expelled from hosting the hashtag.