Dear MEL Topic Readers,
WeChat: Why does Elon Musk want X to emulate China's everything-app?
WeChat is a free messaging and calling app that connects over a billion people mainly in China, where the majority of internet users use a smartphone as their primary device. WeChat is regarded as China’s “app for everything” and a super-app because of its wide range of functions, including text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos, location sharing, shopping, food deliveries, and loans and investment. In fact, most cash payments and even transactions are made by either WeChat Pay or Ali Pay nowadays. In other developed countries, there are generations of Internet users who use different devices, apps, and platforms. For example, Facebook vs. Instagram, YouTube vs. TikTok, and PayPal vs. Apple Pay. Now, what Elon Musk is trying to develop from X (Twitter) is a mobile platform like WeChat. To think about the investment he made, $44 billion, the ads-dependent social app won’t be good enough. If X provides convenient and reliable services, there may be a chance to become a dominant platform like WeChat. But there already are strong competitors in the platform market. Who will win?
Enjoy reading the article and learn about what a super platform could do to our lives.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66333633
WeChat: Why does Elon Musk want X to emulate China's everything-app?
WeChat is a free messaging and calling app that connects over a billion people mainly in China, where the majority of internet users use a smartphone as their primary device. WeChat is regarded as China’s “app for everything” and a super-app because of its wide range of functions, including text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast messaging, video conferencing, video games, mobile payment, sharing of photographs and videos, location sharing, shopping, food deliveries, and loans and investment. In fact, most cash payments and even transactions are made by either WeChat Pay or Ali Pay nowadays. In other developed countries, there are generations of Internet users who use different devices, apps, and platforms. For example, Facebook vs. Instagram, YouTube vs. TikTok, and PayPal vs. Apple Pay. Now, what Elon Musk is trying to develop from X (Twitter) is a mobile platform like WeChat. To think about the investment he made, $44 billion, the ads-dependent social app won’t be good enough. If X provides convenient and reliable services, there may be a chance to become a dominant platform like WeChat. But there already are strong competitors in the platform market. Who will win?
Enjoy reading the article and learn about what a super platform could do to our lives.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66333633
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