Today marks the launch of TechRice Design, a new project to highlight the best in Chinese web and mobile user interfaces (UI). The blog would be hosted here on Tumblr, but I want to share this announcement with all TechRice readers.
Journalist Adam Century recently wrote about Weixin in the venerable pages of The New York Times. It’s high time for WeChat to start getting international attention.
The story, Chinese Messaging App Gains Ground Elsewhere, is a sharp overview of the WeChat phenomenon.
As I exited the Taipei City Hall metro station, two beautiful Taiwanese girls in short shorts and skimpy tank tops approached me. The ice-cold shower of reality hit me two seconds later when I found that they were trying to sell me something. D’oh.
But my interest was rekindled when I discovered that something is WeChat (or 微信 in Chinese), the mobile chat app that we at TechRice have predicted as the China tech story of 2012.
Now the story has moved beyond China.
What does a long-deceased eunuch have in common with Chinese tech giants, Baidu and Tencent? It’s not an online music platform or a market capitalization north of US $40 billion (approaching $70 billion in Tencent’s case). Nor is it being a eunuch. Zheng He’s famed Ming-sponsored sea expeditions of the early 1400s represented a powerful China at the center of global trade and influence. Leading fleets of unprecedented size, Zheng He’s seven voyages graced the shores of modern-day Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and India, as well as the Horn of Africa, and extended the emperor’s sphere of influence.
While Baidu and Tencent may not be in shipbuilding (almost surprising given their polymathic aspirations), domestic success has left them with the funds to spread to new lands and markets.
Facebook may have shelled out for Instagram, but don’t expect a billion-dollar acquisition of a mobile startup by Tencent anytime soon.
Instead, version 4.0 the Weixin mobile app is vintage Tencent. The new release adds a host of new SNS features, many of which copy from Path, Instagram, and Google Circles, and still others that are completely new and unique. It’s a prime example of the homegrown combination of copying, remixing, and innovation that Tencent executes to perfection.
It’s the Chinese Lunar New Year in China, the Year of Dragon, which feeds a television frenzy that culminates in CCTV’s (China Central Television) Spring Festival Show. Watching these shows I noticed that Tencent Weibo–not Sina–is the dominant partner (surely because they paid the most money).
In 2012, Tencent will continue to push forward aggressively in social and present a formidable challenge to Sina. In my first blog post of 2012, let’s have a look at how the two top microblog players in China will fare against each other.
A month ago, the user interface designer at the startup I’ve joined suggested that I give QQ Music a try. To be honest, I’m not a great fan of Tencent’s products, maybe because I live in Shanghai where people generally view Tencent as a lower-class brand, although that’s changing with Weixin.
Yet upon log-in to QQ Music, I was surprised by the Windows 8 Metro-style design, a slick interface that feels classy. Digging deeper, it turns out QQ Music’s mobile app is even more functional than stylish, one that I’ve continued to use since I first opened it up upon.
With Weixin, Tencent finally has a product for white-collars, an objective that had eluded the firm for over a decade. With Weixin Lifestyle, it’s building a brand for white-collars too. We at TechRice thinks that’s a very big deal.
Sina’s chances of challenging Tencent for the mass market are gone. Sina Weibo looks secure with its white-collar audience and media influence, but beyond that all bets are off. Heightened censorship and real-name registration add to its concerns. Moreover, Sina Weibo’s social gaming platform has struggled to gain traction while Tencent’s is taking off: “Social Games: Sorry Sina, Tencent Will Take That Too.”
I first introduced Weixin (微信) back in September. Since then, Tencent’s mobile IM app has gone on an absolute tear. If 2011 was the year of Sina Weibo, 2012 will be the year of Weixin.
Weixin just turned one year old, and its development team just released a few staggering facts. It has made a major splash among smartphone users, pulling together all of Tencent’s services into a single mobile app.
