Netizens were out in full force on the 31st of January 2014
To bring in the Year of the Horse, Chinese netizens took to their phones, tablets, laptops and desktops to share the event with their online companions.
Sina Weibo, a popular micro-blogging service, recorded 863,408 posts in the first minute of the year – 55,110 more than were published on the whole day of the calendar new year.
During the Spring Festival Gala, 34.47 million Weibo users interacted with each other over a four-hour period, a substantial 139% increase on 2013 figures. Over and above this, there were 166 million posts discussing the Gala on days following.
Impressive as they are, Weibo’s accomplishments look timid next to usage across rival Tencent’s Qzone platform. The microblogging service exceeded 62,000 posts per second on the sixth second after midnight and a flurry of activity carried on to the next day.
Qzone official statistics show posts reaching 28 million in the first hour of the 2014 New Year. Guangdong province showed the most activity from avid bloggers, following a general trend of increased usage in southern provinces.
Both male and female users wished for health for their family and friends first and foremost. Second on the list for women was a pay rise, while men ranked finding simply finding a girlfriend as their second wish.