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

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#131

Post by rahimnathwani » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 1:57 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #126

rahimnathwani wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

- I never tried. - Chinese wife buys movie tickets online all the time, chooses seat if the theater has reserved seating. - credit cards in America put fraud burden on merchants. This is very different from china (ICBC grumble) and fraudsters in the states will target Chinese using credit cards in the states accordingly. - online, on autopay. - iPhone has had that feature for forever.

- I never tried.

Try it. It's hard due to fragmentation.

- Chinese wife buys movie tickets online all the time, chooses seat if the theater has reserved seating.

Which app or site will let me buy a cinema ticket and choose a seat, on a mobile phone. - credit cards in America put fraud burden on merchants. This is very different from china (ICBC grumble) and fraudsters in the states will target Chinese using credit cards in the states accordingly.

In theory, yes, it's on the merchant. In practice, it's a whole lot of hassle if your mag stripe card gets skimmed.

- online, on autopay.

Autopay isn't online. Unless you mean your computer or phone has to be on, or the autopay doesn't work.

- iPhone has had that feature for forever.

Doesn't work if even a single member of the group uses Android (or Windows or BB), which is pretty likely in a group of more than 4 people.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#132

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #131

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- I never tried. - Chinese wife buys movie tickets online all the time, chooses seat if the theater has reserved seating. - credit cards in America put fraud burden on merchants. This is very different from china (ICBC grumble) and fraudsters in the states will target Chinese using credit cards in the states accordingly. - online, on autopay. - iPhone has had that feature for forever.

- I never tried. Try it. It's hard due to fragmentation. - Chinese wife buys movie tickets online all the time, chooses seat if the theater has reserved seating. Which app or site will let me buy a cinema ticket and choose a seat, on a mobile phone. - credit cards in America put fraud burden on merchants. This is very different from china (ICBC grumble) and fraudsters in the states will target Chinese using credit ca…

> Try it. It's hard due to fragmentation.

I've never needed to give any money.

> Which app or site will let me buy a cinema ticket and choose a seat, on a mobile phone.

There are literally tons of apps for this. It isn't hard at all. Heck, just use fandango and be done with it, if you want.

> - credit cards in America put fraud burden on merchants. This is very different from china (ICBC grumble) and fraudsters in the states will target Chinese using credit cards in the states accordingly.

> In theory, yes, it's on the merchant. In practice, it's a whole lot of hassle if your mag stripe card gets skimmed.

Fuck ICBC. Chinese restaurants in Bellevue would pray on Microsoft China employees just because they knew they could scam their credit cards while, when reported to ICBC, would just say "prove you didn't make those charges!" Whereas if it was a non-Chinese AmEx, it wouldn't be a problem at all. Just fuck ICBC, and WePay is a Chinese solution to a Chinese problem.

> Autopay isn't online. Unless you mean your computer or phone has to be on, or the autopay doesn't work.

My gas bill, electric bill, and water bill were just paid a week ago, I didn't have to do anything. EVERY utility has an online presence, and they all support autopay. My rent is on autopay also, as is my car loan, all setup online, the only bills I pay manually are my credit card ones and whatever I get from the hospital, again, paid all online.

> Doesn't work if even a single member of the group uses Android (or Windows or BB), which is pretty likely in a group of more than 4 people.

There are plenty of location services if you don't want to use what is built into iPhone. Note that the iPhone map service works even in China, as my wife had me on it a lot when we lived in Beijing.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#133

Post by Markoff » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:54 PM UTC

Danihan wrote: post #59

Markoff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

often, they are very fast deleted from your Moments (Wall), heck is you use sensitive keyword they won't be even delivered to the other party in PRIVATE message, so much for this amazing messenger we should look up to

Big government intervention is not the app's fault.

WeChat is censoring the messages, not government, they just give them order and WeChat gladly accept terms in exzchange for China monopoly and protection from international competitors, same go for Facebook, Google and million other services, which Chinese just stole and rebranded. So how exactly it's not their fault they are sleeping in bed with Chinese government?

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#134

Post by Markoff » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:56 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #67

Markoff wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not hard, let government block all your international competitors and you will see astonishing growth in brainwashed spoon-fed population only people amazed by wechat are those who never lived in China next time - Democratic party would like to repeat success of CCP, they get 100% of votes! same goes for railways, all companies in liberalized European market are crying tears and wanna go learn from Chinese state…

Companies maybe, their customers is a different story.

what about customers? so customers have pretty much huge options, you can choose either WeChat, WeChat or Wechat, what will be your choice? kudoz to WeChat for success in such competitive market!

/s

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#135

Post by Markoff » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 6:59 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #43

Markoff wrote: post #41

TLDR Milestones - leave totalitarian government block all your competitors, be complacent and provide all your data to government, censor what people post on their public wall and in private messages as well yeah, if someone is looking up to privy like this I would recommend moving to China or North Korea where they can try to release their another inspirited product

This is not a good comment for Hacker News—it contains more inflammation than information. We're hoping to optimize for signal/noise ratio here, which heads in the opposite direction. If you'd comment accordingly, we'd appreciate it. Edit: unfortunately it looks like you've been posting plenty of unsubstantive and/or uncivil comments to Hacker News. We penalize accounts that do that and eventually ban them if they wo…

are you sure you are not ABC (judging by nickname) who lived in China less than me and it's just here supporting their totalitarian government based on fantasies you read about China online without clue about real life in China? Because that's the case of ABCs, they know less about China than non-Chinese living there...

not sure what is not civil about my comments, I lived in China, I talk about Chinese app mentioned in article and provide what is behind real success of WeChat, which is not thanks to features they have, but thanks to government protection

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#136

Post by eratins » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #103

eratins wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a "Western"-thing or more of a Silicon Valley thing? I really think Google could have created the ultimate chat app... but I guess they are "creating their own competition."

It's really a western thing. Chinese like crowded pages with lots of functionality, they must feel very 热闹!!! The west prefers more distribution of functionality with simplicity so doing one thing is much more appealing to us.

But when I was visiting Italy and Greece, I noticed the sites most people viewed were also very crowded and busy.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#137

Post by eratins » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

frik wrote: post #111

lawik wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Strange that you're being downvoted as I found this to be true too.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#138

Post by eratins » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

Markoff wrote: post #135

dang wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a good comment for Hacker News—it contains more inflammation than information. We're hoping to optimize for signal/noise ratio here, which heads in the opposite direction. If you'd comment accordingly, we'd appreciate it. Edit: unfortunately it looks like you've been posting plenty of unsubstantive and/or uncivil comments to Hacker News. We penalize accounts that do that and eventually ban them if they wo…

are you sure you are not ABC (judging by nickname) who lived in China less than me and it's just here supporting their totalitarian government based on fantasies you read about China online without clue about real life in China? Because that's the case of ABCs, they know less about China than non-Chinese living there... not sure what is not civil about my comments, I lived in China, I talk about Chinese app mentioned…

So you are one of those bitter expats then (judging by your comments)?

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#139

Post by Markoff » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

frik wrote: post #111

lawik wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

it's ahead only if you think those markets are comparable, people outside China don't desire this functinality since they have many other good options, people in China has horrible options so WeChat looks actually pretty good to them and they use additional functionality on top of chat/wall

I lived in China since beginning of growth of WeChat and could see it in front of my eyes, in beginning it was very simple messenger and they kept growing userbase and adding more and more functionality, though you end up being locked in in their ecosystem, as was mentioned taobao links are blocked and those options under Wallet section are mostly not the best value, so I pretty much avoided those added functionality. Heck I rather top up electricity through Alipay, since it was easier than WeChat or some companies didn't have contracts with them.

anyway back to your comment, you say they are ahead of Whatsapp and Facebook, but please tell me in what exactly they are ahead, in selling tickets, paying utilities and sending money through messenger app? do people outside China desire this? if people don't desire it, they are not ahead, people in west have fast wire transfers, can pay pretty much anywhere in card so there is no necessity for such functionality, I could go on and on if you tell me in what area they are exactly ahead since I lived in China for years and I live in west so I can compare

Yes, WeChat is extremely convenient for life in China. Is it convenient and good app for life outside China? Hell no, I don't want and I don't need those features from Messenger, since we don't have blocked internet I can visit whatever website I want and use their services without state protectionism.

Re: On Growing: Lessons from the Story of WeChat

#140

Post by downandout » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:27 PM UTC

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…

Just goes to show you....execution is all that matters. If you can force your crappy app onto hundreds of millions of devices through your deal-making capabilities, you'll have the same success that a viral sensation would have.