1, every time I talk to people,it’ll popout the somebody is using QQ International, click here to learn more www.imqq.com.
what’s that mean? to promote the imqq.com?   i don’t think so, most people I’m talking with are all chinese. Could anyone who see this can tell them to delete this stupid sentence? thanks!

2,no english news, no chinese news in the pop out when I login my QQ, only some videos. It make people sad, who’s gonna reviews that any more?

3, no local cooperation, only stupid shanghai chinese corner. Tencent  is in shenzhen, why there isn’t shenzhen chinese corner? all people went to the shenzhenstuff.com  to play with beautiful girls.

4,bad speed for the QQ mail, I guess some intergration’s problem, cause when I was on the QQ chinese ,everything is ok.

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QQ used to have some English versions, but unlike them which are simply QQ with English interface developed by the same dev team, QQ International is now a separate product and developed by a team based in Shanghai. Feature-wise, QQ International is more like a light version of QQ Chinese version. It also supports the basic instant messaging features such as group chat etc, but many bundled features such as QQShow and so on are currently removed from QQ International. But interesting enough, two major difference you can find on QQ International:

• Featured Groups in different categories including Nightlife & Events, Business & Classifieds, Travel & Leisure, Personal & Dating, Language & Education, which actually reflects the life of foreigners in China
• English-only information from third-parties including CityWeekend, ChinesePod, ICS etc which are popular news resources

The target users are foreigners, who live in China not really the global audience

The team leader clarified the ideas behind the QQ International. “You know how popular QQ is in China. We understand more and more foreigners come to China and our primary goal is to help them communicate with both Chinese and foreign friends, while growing their network in China . We also want to build an efficient platform providing all the information and tools one might need when living in China.”, said the team leader. “On the other hand, QQ has also been adopted widely by Chinese companies as important online Customer Service tool. We do think QQ International can help foreign companies in their business, having a better communication with their Chinese customers.”

QQ International is to be an Open Service

As we found on QQ International, ICS and CityWeekend are now promoted on the side-tab. “They have very good content which we’d love push to our foreign users so they can easily know what’s happening locally. We are also featuring dozens of groups representing foreigner’s interest groups in China. They can join those groups and connect with other foreigners who live in China with common purposes, business etc.”, the leader said, “We are happy to partner with any third-party/community with good content or useful resources and promote them through QQ International. So feel free contact us.”

The future of QQ International

The QQ International right now has over 200k users since its official launch in October 2009. When we asked about the future plan, the question was answered in a smart way. They said, “Firstly, you probably have noticed that the english-community is not the largest foreign community in China; Secondly, we will implement other popular QQ services too, but we want to emphasize that QQ International, at least for now, is not targeting the global market, but focusing on positioning itself as a major player in the foreign minds of China.”

Popular international service such as Facebook and Twitter are not available in China right now, we think Tencent clearly sends a message saying, let’s connect on QQ International. Make sense or Not? (We are looking forwards to your comments) On QQ International’s official site, the slogan says “Expand your Guanxi (Ed: Guanxi means Social Connections) in China on QQ International” which actually explains all. We’ve been told that the team was happy to organize some events to introduce this products in more detail and also wanted to hear more feedback directly from local foreigners, so please, stay tuned and you might have chance to walk into the ‘mysterious’ Tencent office.

The fact is that Chinese users approach online social networking differently than Western users. In order to stand a chance against local competitors, foreign social networking companies should take the time to understand these differences and adapt their sites appropriately. Here at BloggerInsight, we tapped the knowledge of our expert network and identified four key characteristics that distinguish Chinese SNS users.

(1) It’s all about entertainment – Chinese users rely on online social networking sites as their primary source of cheap, quick, and accessible entertainment throughout the week. As a result, online social networks are used less for practical communication and more for killing time and amusement—whether it’s playing a quick game at work or chatting with other users after school. Take ‘Parking Wars‘ for example – one of today’s hottest games on Chinese social networking sites, especially among white-collar workers. Users earn virtual cash for parking on their friend’s lots and for ticketing their friends when they park “illegally”. After earning enough money, users can buy more expensive cars. Millions of white collar professionals are hooked; many check their Xiaonei or 51.com profiles several times each day to update their parking status. And why? For fun, of course. After all, that is the primary motivation of Chinese netizens when logging onto a SNS.

(2) Higher tolerance for intrusiveness – While Western users are often sensitive to “clutter” around their social networking profiles (remember the initial backlash against Facebook’s flurry of new applications?), Chinese users dig the extras that come with social networking platforms. Viral games, contests, forum discussions, and other add-ons drive traffic because young Chinese netizens don’t hesitate to send message after message to friends, inviting them to get involved on social networking platforms. For instance, on a site called QQ Show, developed by China’s SNS giant Tencent, users dress up their avatars and compete in virtual fashion shows. Teens will IM their friends fervently, asking for votes on QQ Show. And while some of us are tempted to label this as “spam,” it’s just another way for Chinese SNS users to engage and interact with each other. As you can imagine, these SNS applications are huge in creating user stickiness and encouraging users to repeatedly visit the site.

(3) SNS as a public space – Many Western users see social networking sites as an extension of their real-life relationships, and their online social circles often reflect this perspective. Chinese users, on the other hand, are more likely to add strangers via the Internet and generally accept most friend invitations. And instead of keeping online conversations within their own networks, Chinese netizens gravitate toward bulletin board systems (BBS) to express themselves and participate in completely public discussions. As one of our bloggers notes, “privacy is not as important as interesting conversation.”

(4) Building an online identity – Young Chinese netizens view their SNS profiles as representations of themselves to the world, establishments of self territory outside of their parents’ and schools’ oversight. For them, social networking is about standing out and building a reputation in an online world. Local social networking sites do a great job of catering to this need for self-expression. For instance, on QQ – China’s largest social networking portal in terms of user base – users make micro-payments of 1-5 rmb to customize their profiles by purchasing virtual goods, such as accessories, clothing, and new hairstyles. In fact, this handy feature generated a large portion of QQ’s revenue last year.

So despite foreign efforts to “figure out” the much-discussed Chinese market, local social networking sites are simply cooler and more entertaining to the country’s netizens. Companies need to realize that the cut, translate, and paste strategy will never work for a unique market with its own preferences and idiosyncrasies. New features need to be added, and entire websites need to be tailored and adapted to suit Chinese netizens.

Some additional questions to consider (and we would love to hear your thoughts):

Are there any foreign social networking sites that are on the right track to tapping the Chinese market?
What will it take for foreign SNS to snag and keep users from QQ, Xiaonei, and other domestic giants?

1. Tencent is not only caring about young generation

Fanli is a trial to ‘entertain’ older users. It’s very true that almost every internet user in China is using Tencent’s service, but Tencent has to admit that most of these service, including QQ, QQShow, QZone etc are much less attractive to older users who are now using MSN, Skype for instant communication as alternatives, not paying attention to its QQ avatars and not using QZone because they think it is not that user-friendly. “Kids probably don’t need to get rebate, but for mature users and when kids get older, they will love our new rebate service.” said Richard. I think it does make sense. Tencent is preparing for the future.

2. Tencent wants its users to ‘Get Paid’

Tencent is making a huge amount of money from its online virtual goods, online advertising, mobile value-added service etc, but now, Fanli is sending us a message, you can save some money and even get some cash back from Tencent. Fanli has now established the partnership with a couple of popular e-commerce sites such as Dangdang, 360buy, Newegg, Joyo (Amazon China), VANCL and so on. With its huge user base and super strong online presence, it’s no surprise to see more to join in near future.

3. From Paipai to Fanli, from C2C to B2C

Tencent is putting more effort on e-commerce to challenge Taobao. Paipai, Tencent’s C2C service to compete directly with Taobao is doing OK, and Fanli is now the answer to Taobao Mall (Taobao’s B2C service), but this time, Tencent chose not to fight head-to-head. Instead, it focus on the rebate for the customer which is what Taobao Mall is not offering explicitly.

4. The future plan

Fanli is very bad news for other rebate sites such as 51Fanli which is operating for several years. But talked to Richard, it seems that they are not thinking of adding Price Comparison or Product Search feature or launch it as a new service which Google China has done it nicely and I thought it will be quite popular and important in Chinese e-commerce. Also, no exact plan yet to integrate Fanli into Tencent’s other service. ‘We are not going to promote it on other service at this stage.’ the product manager told us. However, when I asked if they will introduce social networking feature into Fanli (Taobao’s Taojianghui is the SNS bundled with Taobao’s e-commerce), the answer is Maybe.

but there is a website called douban(www.douban.com), it’s the best innovation in china, to share the life.

and also in shenzhen the second internet company is called XunLei(http://www.xunlei.com/), it’s a download software(C/S), the speed is the fastest with its core technology, but still facing the copyrights problem when they want to IPO, as it’s inlegal out of china.

had a coffee break with my new friend Guang Yao (english name is Justin), who is an avid social media guy, loving twitter, blogs, and other social online stuff. Here are some notes of what I got from our discussion this evening:

There is a coffee shop in Hangzhou city, China called “Beta Cafe” that is founded by some Alibaba Group execs. It has not spent any money on advertising, all of its customers come from word of mouth and SOCIAL MEDIA – blogs, social networks, etc – AND IS doing really well, as a token of chinese internet success and social networking.

We then talked about US internet, of course the google, ebay, amazon, twitter, and some other smaller sites. I’m not gonna bother writing about that, as this is an ENGLISH blog (haha) and you guys all know about this, and there’s tons of ENGLISH (amazing….) blogs talking about ENGLISH seo and internet marketing. Lets talk about these top chinese sites for those of you who don’t know:

I’m sure you may have heard, but if not, Alibaba Group is a major internet company in China, traded on the Hong Kong stock exchange (1688.hk. They own a portfolio of companies in ecommerce, listed below:

a) Alibaba International – this is the flagship site, which started as a bulliten board by Jack Ma in 1999 for manufacturers to post their products. It turned into a huge directory where factories and trading companies all over the world (well, mainly in China, but then again, theres most of the manufacturing these days) could promote their products to wholesalers, importers, and buyers.

b) Alibaba Domestic – in Chinese for chinese b2b transactions. Factories and Trading companies can sell to other chinese companies.

c) Tao Bao (www.taobao.com) – The Chinese ebay. Well, yea EBay tried to enter the chinese market a few years ago, and Tao Bao kicked its a$$! Tao Bao is free for both buyers and sellers though, so that may be a reason its such a dominent player. But Chinese love this site, and I would say is where 90% of chinese e-commerce is done. They also have an “amazon” fulfillment type system they’re working on, that will connect factories to buyers directly – with tao bao as the platform to “drop ship” direct to consumer (not taking on any inventory though)

d) Alipay – e-payment system. Basically the Chinese Paypal. 99% of the market share.

e) Alisoft – mainly a CRM system, it is cross promoted to its other channels in Alibaba and Tao Bao – and is how Alibaba attempts monetizes these other products, as they do not charge for usage on tao bao, nor do they charge much on alibaba china.

f) Alimama – an advertising platform, like google adwords and adsense. also another way it monetizes tao bao, with banner advertisements and the like.

Next we have Baidu , which is traded on the US NasDaq stock market (BIDU) is the dominant search engine in China, with approximately 75% market share of the search market here. Google China is trying to penetrate the market with maybe the 25% remaining market share, but Baidu still seems to dominate by a wide margin. They have the same business model as Google, selling sponsored advertisements, except they also have some advertisement IN THE ORGANIC results, not just on the left and the top. In addition to their flagship search engine, they also have:

payment system, shopping portal, and a new instant messaging tool. But there clear moneymaker is the baidu search engine.

Tencent, or more commonly known as QQ is a hugely successful Instant Messaging (IM) platform started and still based in the same city I live in now, Shenzhen. A private company (from as far as I can tell) this company makes the most profit of the 3, almost printing money.

Instant Messaging – A IM system like skype or MSN, with voice and video chat like those, But one cool feature I like is YOU’RE NAKED. Yea, you have a virtual “you” that is either a girl or a boy. You can then BUY clothing for your virtual person, picking shirts, pants, shoes, and accessories.

ONLINE GAMES make up 30% of its revenue, as the Chinese market loves to play online games, and Tencent’s games are really popular.

Pai Pai – C2C shopping site, a pretty much copy of tao bao.

Ten Pay – another alipay / paypal e-payment solution.

Other sites in china are more media (yahoo news) sites, that are also emerging with more products:
Sina.com
Sohu.com
163.com

What really amazes me, and was pointed out by the others tonight, is THEY ALL COPY EACH OTHER. And everyone has a product for every major internet function, payment, shopping, chat, etc. We discussed how its harder to copy in the USA because of trademarks and copyrights. But its sad to see in China. My friends tonight are almost afraid to share their ideas. here is why

THERE ARE REPRESENTATIVES From these above MAJOR Chinese internet companies building 100s of products in their R&D departments. they will attend events, work in social media sites, and then report back to their companies the ideas – AND COPY THEM.

So how can a young entrepreneur start his internet company? his ideas are stolen before he can even develop them…by huge multimillion dollar companies. Its sad. Its amazing, and it makes you wonder how innovation can continue.