Comments on: In Chinese, Twitter Actually Means “Blog”

By: Quora

Quora — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:25:35 +0000

Does a tweet in Japanese hold more information due to the way characters are counted?…

Japanese and Chinese holds more information because we use Chinese characters. Here’s interesting blog post about Twitter in China. > In other words, 114 characters of Twitter in Chinese translate into 430 characters in English. This is well beyond th…

By: Carpet cleaning San Mateo

Carpet cleaning San Mateo — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:49:39 +0000

Impressive ideas, I look forward to perusing the other comments.

By: 140 Characters On Chinese Twitter Is More Like 500 Characters On Twitter.com - AllTwitter

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:11:43 +0000

[...] times as much meaning on Weibo as you can on Twitter. This was part of an experiment posted on Thomas Crampton‘s blog over a year ago, but the language math still works [...]

By: Chinese Microblogs More Than Just Twitter Clones | Penn Olson

Chinese Microblogs More Than Just Twitter Clones | Penn Olson — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 06:07:32 +0000

[...] rather than 140 (roman alphabet) letters. Of course Chinese characters allow one message to carry significantly more information than an English-language Tweet. Tencent Weibo at [...]

By: Donna Kggg

Donna Kggg — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:06:08 +0000

Twitter, Google, Facebook & PGE Smartmeters exist only to spy on you and sell your information to advertisers. They spy on every single thing you do, look at, click on and sell it.

They also will give the information to people who are suing you and to any agency that requests it. Don't use them.

Get privacy software on your computer. Don't be a tool for them anymore.

By: Twitter’s Ascension in Japan - Thomas Crampton

Twitter’s Ascension in Japan - Thomas Crampton — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:48:12 +0000

[...] Twitter actually means blog: One reason for the possible appeal of Twitter in Japan and Sina Weibo in China is how much can be expressed in 140 characters. Each character in Chinese and Japanese is equivalent to a word, making microblogs more like blogs. [...]

By: The Trending Monster » Twittering Grows in China (but not on Twitter)

The Trending Monster » Twittering Grows in China (but not on Twitter) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:39:58 +0000

[...] I blogged earlier, the Chinese-language is in some ways better suited to Twitter than English: Twitter in Chinese actually means “Blog”. If you INSIST on looking at Twitter usage in China, here’s a posting I did about the [...]

By: Twittering Grows in China (but not on Twitter) « gabriel catalano | in-perfección

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:12:53 +0000

By: 160-140

160-140 — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:39:38 +0000

[...] vậy, rất ngạc nhiên khi với tiếng Trung Quốc thì một câu có 114 ký tự có thể tương đương với tận 4… (tức là gần gấp 4 lần tính một cách cơ [...]

By: Twittering Grows in China (but not on Twitter) | MarketingTypo.com

Twittering Grows in China (but not on Twitter) | MarketingTypo.com — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:20:09 +0000

By: jezwebb

jezwebb — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:12:01 +0000

Oops, maybe I should add something too this…

I am not sure how long this has been the case, but while Weibo allows 140 Chinese characters in a post, you can actually enter up to 280 Roman characters. If the different character allowances are intended to give writers of English and Chinese equal opportunity to express meaning, it would suggest Sina thinks Chinese microblogging is TWICE as generous as microblogging in English.

By: jezwebb

jezwebb — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:12:01 +0000

Oops, maybe I should add something too this…

By: WEB2.0は、中国のTwitterユーザーがTOYATAをコミットする！ | WEB DREAM

WEB2.0は、中国のTwitterユーザーがTOYATAをコミットする！ | WEB DREAM — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 08:38:18 +0000

[...] 僕のGoogle Buzz、Twitterのフォロワーの中国人はいます。もちろん、僕にはイメージしか理解できません。Google　Buzzでは、中古人のポップアーティトです。もし、中国人でなく北朝鮮人でしたら僕は、北朝鮮政府からスパイとして、マークされるかも知れませんね？ In Chinese, Twitter Actually Means “Blog”からご紹介します！ [...]

By: Thomas Crampton

Thomas Crampton — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 07:54:16 +0000

Depends on your blog. My postings are often just a paragraph.

By: s

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 06:49:48 +0000

a small paragraph of text is considered a blog? uh, no.

By: Twitter Grows in China (but not on Twitter) - Thomas Crampton

Twitter Grows in China (but not on Twitter) - Thomas Crampton — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 06:02:38 +0000

[...] As I blogged earlier, the Chinese-language is in some ways better suited to Twitter than English: Twitter in Chinese actually means “Blog”. [...]

By: Demographics of China’s Twitter Users | MarketingTypo.com

Demographics of China’s Twitter Users | MarketingTypo.com — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:20:45 +0000

[...] Microblogging itself is an interesting phenomenon in China, due to the nature of the written Chinese language: A Tweet in Chinese is almost a short blog post. [...]

By: Demographics of China’s Twitter Users - Thomas Crampton

Demographics of China’s Twitter Users - Thomas Crampton — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:52:20 +0000

[...] Microblogging itself is an interesting phenomenon in China, due to the nature of the written Chinese language: A Tweet in Chinese is almost a short blog post. [...]

By: Thomas Crampton

Thomas Crampton — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:35:19 +0000

@uln I love that calculus of translation! Thank you!!

By: Uln

Uln — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:00:31 +0000

Thomas, the problem is 140 characters ascii is not equivalent to 140 Chinese characters, neither in meaning conveyed nor in the bytes it takes to transmit it!

I got a rule of thumb from a well known translator in the China blog scene:
Ncharacters = 1.7x Nwords

Now, the average length of an English word is roughly 4 letters, so this gives:
Ncharacters = 1.7 x Nletters/4 = 0.425 x Netters

This means that, to convey the SAME meaning, you need to use less than half (0.425) of characters when you write Chinese than letter is English.

In other words, it takes 2.35 times more characters to say the same thing in latin script than in Chinese script.

Of course, all this is a rough calculation, because the estimates of 1.7 and 4 letter/word are not so precise, and they depend very much on the style of the writer.