But, sticking with the WeChat analogy, it would be competing in a market crowded with WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and others. If Musk built X from scratch, he could play around funneling users from Twitter to the new platform. Not long after WeChat launched in 2011, Tencent opened up QQ’s enormous social graph to WeChat, giving people the option to add QQ friends on WeChat. Tencent was already the social networking king of China with QQ, a messenger akin to ICQ that took off in the PC age. With over 1.3 billion users, WeChat is the ubiquitous messenger in China, while people go on Twitter mostly to consume information rather than talk to people they know in real life. The fact that it is a chat app means it’s highly sticky. Before diving into what WeChat has done right, let’s not forget that its core as a social messaging app makes it fundamentally different from Twitter, which is a social media platform. The messaging app thrived under conditions unique to China, for better or worse. Unlikely, at least not WeChat in its current state. Putting these concerns aside, could Musk replicate WeChat’s success in the U.S. Links from Tencent’s nemeses, like Alibaba and Douyin (TikTok’s sister in China), were inaccessible on WeChat until Beijing’s recent anti-monopoly movement began to tear down the thick walls.Ī super app might bring convenience to users as they hardly need to leave the platform - which in turn helps drive revenues for the company - but the model can stifle competition and rule out user choices. The all-in-one messenger has in effect erected a walled garden, critics say, where e-commerce transactions only take place over its payments app and information consumed by users is either published within WeChat’s infrastructure or third-party services backed by Tencent. The exact WeChat features that impress Musk are also the source of criticisms of the app. But is the WeChat model really a desirable product for the U.S.? And Tencent’s investment in Tesla has probably given Musk an insight into the Chinese internet giant. WeChat has long been celebrated in the West as one of the greatest inventions that came out of the Chinese internet. And I think if we could achieve that, or even close to that with Twitter, it would be an immense success. You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so useful and so helpful to your daily life. And I think that there’s a real opportunity to create that. In his first town hall with Twitter staff in June, the Tesla founder talked up WeChat as a possible vision for the American social network.Īnd, you know, if I think of, like, WeChat in China, which is actually a great, great app, but there’s no WeChat movement outside of China. That perhaps is indeed Musk’s idea given he’s full of praise for the Tencent-owned messager. People use it to read the news, hail rides, book doctor’s appointments, pay taxes and carry out a myriad of other daily activities. While Musk didn’t elaborate on what X would look like, many reckon he’s aspiring to replicate the success of WeChat, which over the past decade has virtually become the everything app in China. Musk’s tweet this week offered a clue: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” All Rights Reserved.As Elon Musk again nears a deal to buy Twitter, speculation is resurfacing around how the billionaire plans to transform the social network. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2019 and/or its affiliates. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc.2019. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes.
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