On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat • Hacker News Board

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#111

Post by frik » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 5:14 AM UTC

lawik wrote: post #109

est wrote: post #97

Some secret weapons this article did not mention 1. Allen Zhang (Founder of WeChat) was the author of once popular desktop email client: Foxmail, and later Tencent acquired it, Zhang refactored a new version of web mail on mail.qq.com. In order to support Microsoft Exchange protocol, Zhang and his team reversed engineered it, this was later the foundation of Wechat's binary protocol design, in Zhang's words, it's mag…

Even if the team is lean the article made the product seem very heavy, all-in-one. I have a hard time seeing success with that in the west these days. Feature-filled communities was definitely a big thing once. I get that a partnered article won't cover these kinds of practices. However it does leave a bad taste in my mouth to see this unapologetic praise in the article for what seems to be a monolithic monopoly play…

WeChat actually feels very light and has a way better UI than WhatsApp and Facebook Chat - though they rather slowly now copy it from WeChat. Crazy times, as now US has to copy the Chinese competition which is now like 2-3 years ahead.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#112

Post by anuh » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 5:30 AM UTC

lawik wrote: post #109

est wrote: post #97

Some secret weapons this article did not mention 1. Allen Zhang (Founder of WeChat) was the author of once popular desktop email client: Foxmail, and later Tencent acquired it, Zhang refactored a new version of web mail on mail.qq.com. In order to support Microsoft Exchange protocol, Zhang and his team reversed engineered it, this was later the foundation of Wechat's binary protocol design, in Zhang's words, it's mag…

Even if the team is lean the article made the product seem very heavy, all-in-one. I have a hard time seeing success with that in the west these days. Feature-filled communities was definitely a big thing once. I get that a partnered article won't cover these kinds of practices. However it does leave a bad taste in my mouth to see this unapologetic praise in the article for what seems to be a monolithic monopoly play…

It is not a monopoly play by any means. Alipay is a big competitor of TencentPay and bigger than WeChatPay. Also though the app supports so many features and services, it has a really simple UI. The user has to go hunt the various features and they don't send too many push notifications either. You have to really know the ins and outs of it to know where to access some of the features.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#113

Post by est » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 5:58 AM UTC

swang75 wrote: post #110

est wrote: post #97

Some secret weapons this article did not mention 1. Allen Zhang (Founder of WeChat) was the author of once popular desktop email client: Foxmail, and later Tencent acquired it, Zhang refactored a new version of web mail on mail.qq.com. In order to support Microsoft Exchange protocol, Zhang and his team reversed engineered it, this was later the foundation of Wechat's binary protocol design, in Zhang's words, it's mag…

Many portions of this reply are categorically and maliciously false including: 2) "Wechant literally stole telecom's SMS cake. Tencent put lots of effort striking deals with telecoms, ordinary IM startups might simply be blocked or QoS'd to death." Amongst WeChat's many local competitors were equivalent messaging apps including China Mobile's "Feixin" messaging app and China Telecom/Netease's "Yixin". Both competitor…

> WeChat doesn't block or QoS other IM products

What I mean, telecoms might block IM service because SMS market were rapidly replaced by IM apps. It was highly disputed around 2012. Wechat generates so much traffic that their poor 2.5G cell network can not handle signal storms.

Not only that, Wechat had VoIP capability, which requires a high level license to operate in China. The whole OTT controversy can be found here https://www.zhihu.com/question/20847225

> WeChat works with various partners including "phone security" apps to make sure that this background process isn't being unnecessarily killed

Exactly what I meant, Tencent was large enough to negotiate, while other smaller IM brands were not so lucky. Wechat's success was standing on a giant's shoulder.

> because certain security vulnerabilities on older versions of Android system browsers

But newer versions of android Wechat still refuse to include system default browser as webview even if it's more up-to-date and safer, no?

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#114

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:01 AM UTC

lawik wrote: post #109

est wrote: post #97

Some secret weapons this article did not mention 1. Allen Zhang (Founder of WeChat) was the author of once popular desktop email client: Foxmail, and later Tencent acquired it, Zhang refactored a new version of web mail on mail.qq.com. In order to support Microsoft Exchange protocol, Zhang and his team reversed engineered it, this was later the foundation of Wechat's binary protocol design, in Zhang's words, it's mag…

Even if the team is lean the article made the product seem very heavy, all-in-one. I have a hard time seeing success with that in the west these days. Feature-filled communities was definitely a big thing once. I get that a partnered article won't cover these kinds of practices. However it does leave a bad taste in my mouth to see this unapologetic praise in the article for what seems to be a monolithic monopoly play…

"the article made the product seem very heavy, all-in-one"

This is what amazes me. WeChat has lots and lots of features, but doesn't feel heavy at all. The messaging UI is both clean (no unnecessary clutter; snappy) and feature-rich (can send text, start a voice chat, send money, send a voice message). Some of the other features that you might not use every day (like paying utility bills, topping up mobile) are in a separate 'Wallet' section which actually looks a bit like the Alipay app.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#115

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:02 AM UTC

anuh wrote: post #85

abalone wrote: post #73

> We partnered up with China Tech Insights, a research group within Tencent (WeChat’s parent company) to understand how WeChat drives its 889 Million monthly active users... I've always wondered if WeChat benefitted from something particular to the Chinese context, for example, favorable government support.[1] This is not exactly the sort of stellar investigative methodology that's going to answer that question. In f…

I think WeChat's specific success in China was really driven by WeChat payments and QR code - both of which failed in the US. These two features were critical to support so many use cases that WeChat enables today (payments, peer to peer transfers, offline to online service). Yes the Chinese New Year helped garner interest and a lot of people use WeChat to send red packets, they also connected their bank accounts and…

"WeChat's specific success in China was really driven by WeChat payments and QR code"

WeChat was successful (in DAU/MAU) way before WeChat payments existed. WeChat payments couldn't have succeeded without the existing user base.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#116

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:04 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #99

sfifs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is ridiculous amount of competition an innovation in the Chinese app market. Every time I visit China, I'm surprised by something new the folks can do with mobile. That innovation is starting to spill into India with Chinese company investments. A year ago, mobile payments in small shops and businesses were ubiquitous only in China, now they're proliferating in Indian cities too. The Western markets are quite…

Mobile payments aren't so big in the west because they aren't so necessary. Almost every shop in the USA takes cards, the same isn't true in china or many developing markets, but everyone has a phone so let's use the camera and QR codes to get around our lack of infrastructure.

There's something else going on as well, though. People in China will now use Alipay/WeChat to pay at (for example) restaurants even though they have a bank card, and the restaurant can take bank cards. The restaurants increasingly have specialised hardware (maybe part of the same POS terminal that takes bank cards) and aren't using a smartphone to process customers' mobile payments.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#117

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:10 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #100

apexalpha wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived in China for 6 months, and from the top of my head: - Voice/Text Chat - (Video) calling - Payment service (like Apple or Android pay) - Buy movie tickets - Buy plane tickets - Send money via Chat. - Splitt the bills. - Pay the government (utility companies etc) directly from WeChat - Find people nearby (like tinder? But less so than TanTan) - Chat on desktop (like whatsapp web, but native client) - Log o…

I lived in china for 9 years. I preferred using my unionpay card to buy things (didn't work at the wet market) and had a separate app for didi dache. You don't have to do all one things in wechat if you don't want to (accept maybe wepay), and I prefer not to for myself (wife is a different story). After moving to California from Beijing, I can do all those things easily now online. What wechat offered instead was he…

"After moving to California from Beijing, I can do all those things easily now online."

I'd find it hard, in California, to do any of these things:

- Send a small payment to a friend (sure, Venmo, but most of my friends don't have Venmo)

- Buy movie tickets and choose a seat

- Pay in a restaurant without risk of my card being cloned

- Pay a water or electricity bill

- Share (real time) location with other people (yes, 'Find my friends' works if we're on iOS, but now everyone is, and it has major setup friction, and no concept of temporary sharing or groups)

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#118

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:12 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #102

captainhcg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`You can send or receive money in Messenger (example: send your friend $10 for lunch or receive $500 from your roommate for rent) after you add a debit card issued by a US bank to your account.` It requires you to bind your account with a debit card. I am using WeChat for years but I never attach my debit card to it, because I do not have a China debit card. When I need e-money, I just ask my family or give my friend…

Try being a foreigner with a unionpay card but lacking a Chinese indentity card number. I heard it's better now, but that requirement was always a bummer for me in trying to do payments online.

That problem was solved (for at least the big banks: ICBC, BoC, CMB, CCB) for WeChat at least 2 years before you left China.

For Alipay, it was already solved when I moved to China in 2010.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#119

Post by thewhitetulip » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:14 AM UTC

est wrote: post #113

swang75 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many portions of this reply are categorically and maliciously false including: 2) "Wechant literally stole telecom's SMS cake. Tencent put lots of effort striking deals with telecoms, ordinary IM startups might simply be blocked or QoS'd to death." Amongst WeChat's many local competitors were equivalent messaging apps including China Mobile's "Feixin" messaging app and China Telecom/Netease's "Yixin". Both competitor…

> WeChat doesn't block or QoS other IM products What I mean, telecoms might block IM service because SMS market were rapidly replaced by IM apps. It was highly disputed around 2012. Wechat generates so much traffic that their poor 2.5G cell network can not handle signal storms. Not only that, Wechat had VoIP capability, which requires a high level license to operate in China. The whole OTT controversy can be found he…

We are seeing this same replicated in India (in a different sector). India's richest businessman has started a new telco because he has 23billion$ put in his new co which provides cheap data and started the trend of lower cost per sms/data for consumers.

Being rich and influential takes you to places for sure and since Tencent was actually powerful and had their own IM like GTalk, they had the skills and the presence for this. But we have to appreciate that they were not restrictive to their cash cow, they disrupted themselves and moved forward to create/acquire wechat

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#120

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:16 AM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #61

Unlike Facebook, using wechat on desktop is a pain. Also doesn't support multiple device.

"Also doesn't support multiple device."

Not strictly true. You can log in a second device (e.g. web browser, tablet client, desktop client) by scanning a QR code with your primary device.

My iPad is my secondary device. Not all messages are synced, but I can pick up my iPad to start or continue a conversation or do other stuff, without doing anything special. The full conversation history is only on my phone, though. The iPad only has the messages sent/received whilst I was actively using it.