Archive for January, 2011

I know you must think what does this have to do with HR? It does. HR is human resources, it’s people.

Twitter is connecting millions of people everyday and this news is particularly interesting as Oprah Winfrey, one eloquent American star, has been surpassed in the Twitter race for influence by a Chinese actress who doesn’t even use Twitter!

That’s funny, right?

Oprah was the tenth largest tweeter on Earth, and is now being replaced by Yao Chen, a Chinese actress who is the most followed person on Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter.

“This is the first time that the ten most followed microbloggers were not the ten most followed twitterers and is a great demonstration of both the size of China’s online population and the impressive growth of the Chinese platform” writes Thomas Crampton.

Weibo has around 50 million users while the US-based Twitter, which is blocked for use in China, is estimated to have over 200 million users.

Apparently, one of the main reasons why Oprah lost her place in the Top 10 is her lack of committment to tweeting (she only tweets few times a month) whereas Yao Chen is very active on Weibo, posting daily and including pictures in her messages (a feature that perhaps should be included in Twitter too).

Source of image Thomas Crampton post

First of all, my apologies for not posting much lately.

In my last post, I talked about how China could potentially be the world’s next leader.

Well, I’m back on this topic again. The New York Times, dedicated an article to China and the opening up of new opportunities for this country. Last November, a document called the “National Patent Development Strategy (2011-2020)” was published by the State Intellectual Property Office of China.

This document can bring along significant changes for the Chinese economy and its place in the world. China is known worldwide as the “low-cost” workshop, where computers and other products designed elsewhere are built.

This could change, and this documents sets a target: China’s goal for annual patent filings by 2015 is two million.

The publication of such document and the ambitious goal set in motion the process that could make China the new technology innovator and become the leader, to the detriment of the US and its prestigious Silicon Valley.

I’d say, let’s just wait and see. If you have any thoughts you’d care to share, leave a comment.