The news alert buzzed on my cellphone in Beijing. Facebook had bought messaging service WhatsApp for a gazillion dollars. Personally, I didn’t care.
Because Chinese government censors have blocked so many global
social-media and technology services — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, plus
any number of media sources — the People’s Republic has nurtured its own
unique tech ecosystem. It’s like we’re a Madagascar populated with
unearthly lemurs, instead of the usual chattering monkeys. And sometimes
those lemurs do really cool tricks.
(MORE: Facebook’s WhatsApp Acquisition Explained)
The reason the WhatsApp news didn’t resonate is that most of us living in China
use WeChat (or Weixin, 微信) instead. WeChat is the brainchild of
Tencent, one of the largest Internet service providers in China.
Westerners may not have heard of Tencent but its Hong Kong-listed arm
boasts a market capitalization of $140 billion. As of last fall, WeChat
had more than 270 million monthly users, compared to WhatsApp’s 450
million. But WeChat doubled its user base in a year, the kind of growth
that should make WhatsApp pay attention to this Chinese monster app.
While WhatsApp is popular in the Americas and Europe,
WeChat is making inroads into East Asia and Africa. (WeChat is hardly
the only Asian mobile messaging service out there, with LINE, Kakao and
Viber also gaining fans.)
WeChat combines the best of Facebook and WhatsApp — and then adds a
slew of monetizing innovations of its own. (Some ideas have been
borrowed from another Chinese Internet giant, Alibaba.) From playing
mobile games and hailing taxis to posting video and making online
payments, WeChat is an all-you-can-use mobile service. This Chinese New
Year, for instance, users delighted in sending and receiving online red
packets (红包) of lucky money. A function called “shake” allows WeChat
users within a certain radius to find each other by jiggling their
cellphones. It sounds silly but walk into a crowded Beijing restaurant,
and you’ll see a fair amount of shaking going on.
WeChat also refines the Facebook experience by allowing easy photo
posting. A more private comments system includes only those people
you’re friends with — not random friends of friends who can clutter your
feed. Group chats allow convivial and efficient communication — one
high-level Chinese government official I met recently admitted to using
group chats to catch up with old university friends.
(MORE: Not Using WeChat Yet? You Might Be Soon)
Because texting in Chinese characters is cumbersome, WeChat allows
users to send quick voice messages instead. Indeed, SMS traffic has
declined in China because of WeChat. Tencent is rolling out
financial-services products that users can tap into via WeChat — imagine
mutual funds via mobiles. The parent company, which also runs a popular
instant-messaging service, expects revenues topping $1 billion this
year. Oh, and unlike WhatsApp, WeChat is free to download for users.
WeChat does have its problems. One is the sticker shop that
tenaciously attaches itself to my profile. I have no need for stickers
and don’t need an alert every time an emoticon is added to my potential
library of cuteness.
But a much larger concern is this: WeChat — like Weibo, the
microblogging platform that proliferated in China in the absence of
Twitter — is monitored by the Chinese government. For most people, who
use WeChat to buy stuff or play games or message Mom or flirt online
with suitors across a crowded bar, such official supervision doesn’t
matter. But Weibo, which flew to such amazing heights a few months ago,
is now slumping amid an overall crackdown on dissent. If WeChat is to
really expand beyond China, it will have to convince users not only that
it’s cooler and more efficient than WhatsApp, but also that it’s more
liberating.
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