You've probably never heard of Chinese actress Yao Chen, but this woman plays big in China. Judging by her China "Twitter" account (known as weibos over there), she has over 10 million followers. That's more than Barack Obama's 9.3 million and US pop star Katy Perry's 8.6 million followers on Twitter, according to Twitaholic. Only Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber, both with over 11 million followers on Twitter, have more microblog fans than Yao Chen.
Remember when Charlie Sheen thought he was a big deal breaking Twitter records? Yao Chen, the 32 year old actress, is winning. She is the only non-American in the top 10 of microblogging stardom.
China's weibos are popular microblog sites run by SINA Corporation (SINA). This year, Sina named Yao queen of the microblog when she surpassed the number of followers of Oprah Winfrey in January. Yao is also the first non-Twitter microblogger among the world's 10 most followed microbloggers.
Users of Sina's weibo platform rose by 208.9% to 195 million by the end of the second half of 2011, the China Internet Network Information Center said in a report earlier this month. China's internet population grew 6% to 485 million by the end of June, according to that report.
