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Citizen Engagement

China launches new microblog TV

By Jianggan Li | 1 September 2011

A new model of TV sets has been launched in China, allowing people to view microblog and tweet through the big screen in their living rooms.

People are already tweeting through their personal computers, mobile phones, tablets and other platforms. Sina Weibo, a microblogging service that is similar to Twitter, but with additional functions such as attaching photos & video clips, has become the most popular social media platform, reaching 200 million subscribers last week. Government agencies across the country have been leveraging the platform to interact with the public, notable examples include Ministry of Foreign Affairs which, through the quirky “Waijiao Xiaolingtong” account (which literally means “Foreign Affairs Information”), shares updates on the Ministry’s activities across the world and knowledge on diplomacy. The account is followed by 472,000 users. Jin Zhongyi, Director of Justice Bureau of Haining City in the Eastern Zhejiang Province, has mandated all non-confidential official document exchanges to be conducted on Weibo. His Weibo profile is now followed by more than 700,000 users.

Jin will be attending the upcoming FutureGov Summit 2011, to be held on 12-14 October in Putrajaya, Malaysia, to share his experience on citizen engagement.

The Hong Kong Government also has a Weibo account, which boosts more than 300,000 followers. The TV sets are produced by Konka, one of the major consumer electronics producers in China. Konka expects to sell around two million such TV sets this year.

In fact, some earlier models of TV sets from Samsung already allowed microblogging through dedicated applications; and the industry is expecting other manufactures to follow suit.

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