Corporate China | Weibo: Xiaomi's gaffe, Baidu's crawl to Brazil

Smartphone maker Xiaomi's co-founder Lei Jun is a marketing master, but his lightweight status as a technology expert landed him in the middle of an embarrassing gaffe in the microblogging realm over the past week. I normally would sympathize with someone caught up in such a gaffe, as such mistakes are usually harmless even if they're somewhat embarrassing. But in this case I don't feel too much sympathy for Lei, who is such a tireless promoter for his company that this kind of stumble was almost inevitable.

Meantime, the number "2" seems to be a magic one for leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU), which made a rare appearance in the microblogging realm to trumpet the formal launch of its new search service in Brazil -- its second major foray outside China after a dismal first effort in Japan. In this case, Baidu isn't really trumpeting the "2" element of its Brazilian story, even though it took more than two years for the launch since reports first emerged of its plans for the site.

Let's start our weekly microblogging round-up with Xiaomi, which seldom goes more than a week or two without appearing in the headlines due to the constant steam of hype coming from the company. Much of that hype comes from co-founder Lei Jun, who is always looking for new ways to make even the most mundane news about his company and its products seem exciting.

Lei almost immediately ran into trouble after putting out the post, which was probably inevitable given his lack of knowledge on the subject and the huge number of followers who read his microblog. As a former reporter, I can testify that this kind of thing happens regularly to junior journalists who try to write authoritatively about complex unfamiliar subjects. Such articles get wide circulation, which inevitably draws derision from industry experts and other insiders who write letters and blog posts deriding the writer for his ignorance.