QQ

Like Heraclitus said, the only constant is change. And in the digital age, change comes fast and furious, indeed. When we last left WeChat, their registration numbers for 2012 had just come out and the service was making its first forays into the West. There were over 300 million users of the free messaging service in China, and the first few million users outside of China had started signing up. Six months on from our mention, WeChat (or “WeiXin” (微信) as it’s known domestically), has boomed steadily within China and…

If you live in China, you have almost certainly heard of Tencent and QQ. If you don’t, and you haven’t, this post is definitely for you. Before I even arrived in China, I was hearing from family and friends about QQ, an instant messaging system, and how popular it is in China. However, it wasn’t until I got here that I realized just how big Tencent actually is, and how important a role its platforms like QQ play in the day-to-day lives of consumers. If companies and marketers are looking…