当
中国知名投资人、亿万富翁王功权决定为情人抛弃妻子时，他选择在网上向亲朋好友以及成千上万的陌生人发布这一消息。49岁的王功权在新浪微博上发帖说，"我放弃一切，和王琴私奔了……不好意思，故不告而别。叩请宽恕！功权鞠躬！"新浪微博在功能上与Twitter类似，是中国这类网络通讯服务中最受欢迎的。
王功权5月16日的这番告白立即在网上蹿红。该微博在24小时内被转发6万次左右。其他名人觉得有必要对此发表意见。王功权的朋友、北京最大房地产开发商之一SOHO中国有限公司(Soho China Ltd.)的董事长、亿万富翁潘石屹在微博上给王功权留言道：家人都非常着急……请速与她们联系。
新浪微博的LOGO。
互联网公司新浪(Sina Corp.)的微博服务在推出不到两年的时间里，已获得了逾1.4亿用户，在中国4.5亿余网民中占比近三分之一。其它几个与之竞争的微博服务也都有数百万用户。
Twitter在中国受屏蔽，中国本土公司若要提供微博服务，需从政府那里获得相应执照。
跟Twitter一样，人们通过微博发布并分享短消息、照片和视频。短消息的长度在中国受到的限制较少，因为140个汉字可以表达的内容远远超过140个英文单词所表达的内容。
网上讨论可能涉及对政府的批评。中国北方一位警察局官员的儿子去年10月开车撞死了人，准备逃离现场时被抓，而他却大喊："我爸是李刚"。此事立即在微博上激起民愤，这句话也成为嘲讽权力滥用行为的新流行语。
专家说，中国政府之所以在某种程度上容忍这种讨论，是因为这让人们有一种相对良性的发泄方式，也为有关当局提供了一种观察公众情绪的手段。中国官方报纸《人民日报》5月26日发表社论说，国家应通过日益普及的互联网特别是微博来收集民意。但通过互联网发表意见也会受到限制：如果在微博上讨论的话题是政府认为太敏感的，比如今年初出现的要举行类似中东抗议活动的威胁言论等，新浪和其它微博服务的审查员就会迅速删除相关言论。
新浪微博
5月16日，王功权在新浪微博上发帖说，"我放弃一切，和王琴私奔了……"图为该条微博的截屏。
微博给了中国普通民众一个窥视朋友、陌生人、富豪和名人生活的机会。微博满足人们偷窥欲的能力已经堪比电视真人秀节目。在微博上，一些中国企业界的巨头随心所欲地（有时甚至是离奇地）公开谈论他们的私生活和个人观点。
比如今年1月，在纽约证券交易所上市的电子商务企业当当网（Dangdang Inc.）的首席执行长李国庆在微博上斥责了摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley），认为后者在当当网进行首次公开募股时低估了它的发行价。他的激烈言语使用了一连串粗俗无礼的言辞，其中一些话出自李国庆自创的"摇滚歌词"。当另一位自称是摩根士丹利员工的微博用户攻击他时，李国庆猛烈还击，称这名用户是"洋人的奴才"和"投行傻妞"。摩根士丹利否认这位用户是其雇员。李国庆还在微博上抨击了其他人，其中包括《华尔街日报》。
王功权掷下的这颗重磅炸弹引起了一阵轰动。作为中国房地产开发商万通地产（Vantone）的创始人之一，同时也是投资机构鼎晖投资（CDH Investments）旗下专司风险投资的鼎晖创投（CDH Venture，总规模9亿美元）的创始人，王功权常被视作中国投资界的偶像人物。他与人私奔的消息在第一天引起了大约三万条网上评论，有人支持，有人嫉妒，还有人提出批评。
媒体人洪晃在其微博上说，这还是头一回有人在微博上宣布自己私奔。洪晃曾任电视节目主持人，常被人形容成是"中国的奥普拉"。
据一位知情人士透露，自宣布私奔的消息后，王功权一直和鼎晖创投保持着联系，也没有离开公司。此人还说除了所有这些"噪音"，鼎晖创投的业务一切如旧。记者无法联系到王功权、他的妻子以及他的情妇就此置评。
自公布私奔消息后，王功权在微博上又发了几十条贴子。在这些贴子中，他从哲学的角度谈论爱的本质，偶尔也对中国政治发表评论。
5月30日，王功权在微博上贴出了自己上传至优酷网的视频链接。在这段视频中，昏暗的光线下，王功权在一片宽阔的水域前清唱其作词作曲的《私奔之歌》。视频上传后的首日，其点播次数就超过35万。
"总是春心对风语，最恨人间累功名……千古只贵一片情！"，王功权用还算凑合的男中音演唱了《私奔之歌》。视频中，他身穿棕色皮夹克，看上去轻松惬意。为了增强戏剧效果，他在唱歌的同时还挥舞着手臂。
Loretta Chao / Josh Chin
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
When billionaire Wang Gongquan, one of China's most famous investors, decided to leave his wife for his mistress, he broke the news to family and friends -- and hundreds of thousands of strangers -- in a message online.
'I am giving up everything and eloping with Wang Qin,' said a post from Mr. Wang's account on Sina Weibo, the most popular of China's Twitter-like Web-messaging services. 'I feel ashamed and so am leaving without saying goodbye. I kneel down and beg forgiveness!'
Mr. Wang's May 16 confession went viral. The 49-year-old's post was re-published by other users about 60,000 times within 24 hours. Other bigwigs felt compelled to weigh in. 'Please get in touch with me as soon as possible!' Mr. Wang's friend, Pan Shiyi, the billionaire chairman of Soho China Ltd., one of Beijing's biggest real-estate developers, wrote to him on Weibo. 'Your family is incredibly anxious . . . Please contact them.'
The Internet has altered social norms and conventional views of privacy around the world, but the change has been particularly stark in China, where open discussion of intimate issues was rare until recently and people had limited avenues for public expression. Now, the Web-enabled here have a lightning-fast means of exchanging information, rumors, jokes and even jabs at the government, often before the censors have time to react.
In the less than two years since it started, Sina Corp.'s Weibo -- the name means 'microblog' -- has gained more than 140 million users, nearly a third of China's 450 million-plus Internet users. Several rival services also boast millions of users.
Twitter is blocked in China, and local companies need licenses from the government in order to operate microblogging services.
Like Twitter, Weibo lets people publish and share short messages, photos and videos. The limits on message length are less confining in China, because far more can be expressed in 140 Chinese characters than in the same number of letters in English.
The discussion can get critical of the government. When the son of a police official in northern China was caught last October fleeing the scene of a fatal car accident and responded by shouting: 'My dad is Li Gang!' outrage over the incident spread over Weibo, and the quote became a new catchphrase for abuse of power.
The government tolerates such discussion, up to a point, because it gives people a relatively benign way to vent, and gives authorities a means to monitor public sentiment, experts say. A May 26 editorial in the official People's Daily said the state should use the growing popularity of the Internet, and microblogs in particular, to gather opinions. But there are limits: Censors at Sina and other microblog services quickly quash discussion of subjects the government considers too sensitive, such as threats earlier this year to carry out Middle East-style protests.
The company acknowledges that it has to censor content in accordance with Chinese regulations, and that an increase in Internet controls would pose a risk for its operations. But Sina Chief Executive Charles Chao said an ability to filter content satisfactorily is 'one of our strengths' and that Sina has done so successfully while growing the company for years.
Weibo has given ordinary Chinese the chance to peek into the lives of friends, strangers and the rich and famous. The voyeurism has turned into the equivalent of reality TV, in which some of the giants of corporate China engage in freewheeling and sometimes bizarre public discussion of their private lives and personal opinions.
In January, for example, Li Guoqing, chief executive of NYSE-listed online retailer E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc., took to Weibo to slam Morgan Stanley for allegedly undervaluing his company's stock in its initial public offering. His rant used a string of vulgar insults, some contained in what he said were fake rock lyrics. When another user claiming to work for the Wall Street bank attacked him, he returned fire, calling her a 'foreigner's flunky' and 'a stupid little girl.' Morgan Stanley denied the user was an employee, and declined to comment on Mr. Li's charges. The CEO has targeted others on his microblog as well, including The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Wang's bombshell has caused a particular stir. The co-founder of Chinese property developer Vantone and founder of CDH Venture, the venture- capital arm of investment firm CDH Investments with a $900 million portfolio, he is often described as an icon in Chinese investing circles. His announcement elicited about 30,000 comments in the first day offering a mix of support, envy and criticism.
'This has to be the first time someone has used Weibo to advertise an elopement,' Hong Huang, a media personality and former TV host sometimes described as 'China's Oprah,' wrote on her own Weibo account.
Mr. Wang has been in touch with CDH since announcing the elopement and hasn't left the company, a person familiar with the situation said, adding that the firm's venture-capital operations are the same as before 'except for all the noise.' Neither Mr. Wang, nor his wife, nor his mistress could be reached for comment.
In dozens of Weibo posts since his revelation, Mr. Wang has waxed philosophical about the nature of love and has offered occasional opinions on Chinese politics.
On May 30, Mr. Wang used Weibo to point readers to a new video of himself on the YouTube-like website Youku. In the video, which was viewed more than 350,000 times in the first day after being uploaded, Mr. Wang stands in front of an expanse of water in dim light as he sings 'Ode to Elopement,' a song he said he had written.
'Always facing the whispers of the wind with a heart longing for love, I loathe nothing more than laboring for profane achievements,' Mr. Wang sings in a passable baritone, looking relaxed in a brown leather jacket as he sweeps his arm for dramatic effect. 'Throughout the ages, the only precious thing is this feeling!'
Loretta Chao / Josh Chin
'I am giving up everything and eloping with Wang Qin,' said a post from Mr. Wang's account on Sina Weibo, the most popular of China's Twitter-like Web-messaging services. 'I feel ashamed and so am leaving without saying goodbye. I kneel down and beg forgiveness!'
Mr. Wang's May 16 confession went viral. The 49-year-old's post was re-published by other users about 60,000 times within 24 hours. Other bigwigs felt compelled to weigh in. 'Please get in touch with me as soon as possible!' Mr. Wang's friend, Pan Shiyi, the billionaire chairman of Soho China Ltd., one of Beijing's biggest real-estate developers, wrote to him on Weibo. 'Your family is incredibly anxious . . . Please contact them.'
The Internet has altered social norms and conventional views of privacy around the world, but the change has been particularly stark in China, where open discussion of intimate issues was rare until recently and people had limited avenues for public expression. Now, the Web-enabled here have a lightning-fast means of exchanging information, rumors, jokes and even jabs at the government, often before the censors have time to react.
In the less than two years since it started, Sina Corp.'s Weibo -- the name means 'microblog' -- has gained more than 140 million users, nearly a third of China's 450 million-plus Internet users. Several rival services also boast millions of users.
Twitter is blocked in China, and local companies need licenses from the government in order to operate microblogging services.
Like Twitter, Weibo lets people publish and share short messages, photos and videos. The limits on message length are less confining in China, because far more can be expressed in 140 Chinese characters than in the same number of letters in English.
The discussion can get critical of the government. When the son of a police official in northern China was caught last October fleeing the scene of a fatal car accident and responded by shouting: 'My dad is Li Gang!' outrage over the incident spread over Weibo, and the quote became a new catchphrase for abuse of power.
The government tolerates such discussion, up to a point, because it gives people a relatively benign way to vent, and gives authorities a means to monitor public sentiment, experts say. A May 26 editorial in the official People's Daily said the state should use the growing popularity of the Internet, and microblogs in particular, to gather opinions. But there are limits: Censors at Sina and other microblog services quickly quash discussion of subjects the government considers too sensitive, such as threats earlier this year to carry out Middle East-style protests.
The company acknowledges that it has to censor content in accordance with Chinese regulations, and that an increase in Internet controls would pose a risk for its operations. But Sina Chief Executive Charles Chao said an ability to filter content satisfactorily is 'one of our strengths' and that Sina has done so successfully while growing the company for years.
Weibo has given ordinary Chinese the chance to peek into the lives of friends, strangers and the rich and famous. The voyeurism has turned into the equivalent of reality TV, in which some of the giants of corporate China engage in freewheeling and sometimes bizarre public discussion of their private lives and personal opinions.
In January, for example, Li Guoqing, chief executive of NYSE-listed online retailer E-Commerce China Dangdang Inc., took to Weibo to slam Morgan Stanley for allegedly undervaluing his company's stock in its initial public offering. His rant used a string of vulgar insults, some contained in what he said were fake rock lyrics. When another user claiming to work for the Wall Street bank attacked him, he returned fire, calling her a 'foreigner's flunky' and 'a stupid little girl.' Morgan Stanley denied the user was an employee, and declined to comment on Mr. Li's charges. The CEO has targeted others on his microblog as well, including The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Wang's bombshell has caused a particular stir. The co-founder of Chinese property developer Vantone and founder of CDH Venture, the venture- capital arm of investment firm CDH Investments with a $900 million portfolio, he is often described as an icon in Chinese investing circles. His announcement elicited about 30,000 comments in the first day offering a mix of support, envy and criticism.
'This has to be the first time someone has used Weibo to advertise an elopement,' Hong Huang, a media personality and former TV host sometimes described as 'China's Oprah,' wrote on her own Weibo account.
Mr. Wang has been in touch with CDH since announcing the elopement and hasn't left the company, a person familiar with the situation said, adding that the firm's venture-capital operations are the same as before 'except for all the noise.' Neither Mr. Wang, nor his wife, nor his mistress could be reached for comment.
In dozens of Weibo posts since his revelation, Mr. Wang has waxed philosophical about the nature of love and has offered occasional opinions on Chinese politics.
On May 30, Mr. Wang used Weibo to point readers to a new video of himself on the YouTube-like website Youku. In the video, which was viewed more than 350,000 times in the first day after being uploaded, Mr. Wang stands in front of an expanse of water in dim light as he sings 'Ode to Elopement,' a song he said he had written.
'Always facing the whispers of the wind with a heart longing for love, I loathe nothing more than laboring for profane achievements,' Mr. Wang sings in a passable baritone, looking relaxed in a brown leather jacket as he sweeps his arm for dramatic effect. 'Throughout the ages, the only precious thing is this feeling!'
Loretta Chao / Josh Chin
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