The rumor : WeChat will be changed to paid service?

Recently there is the rumor that WeChat will be changed the paid service.

There are two bases for this rumor. 

1. As a part of monetization.

2. Career may claim the special data fee for WeChat.

Tencent officially denied this rumor, and their CEO Ma also said that he is sickened by this rumor.Actually, their comment can scratch out the rumor of former one, but how about will be the rumor of latter ?

Some resources said that there is the evidence to indicate the possibility of it. The following picture is the data fee bill of China Unicom.

The bill of WeChat exists as the independent item in this list, so they think that it is the preparation of the special fee for WeChat by China Unicom. And the rumor is that China Mobile also consider to charge the special data fee for WeChat.

I don't think that they made a wrong guess. Because as I said before, Chinese mobile SMS was substantially negative growth in 2012, and it can be said that the one of reason caused by WeChat. So it's the natural thing that careers despise the existence of WeChat.

Which direction they will go? Coexistence and co‐prosperity? Sharing of the earnings? War? We have to keep attention to what will become this answer.

Source => CNR, YNET.com, News.cn

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Sina Weibo updated their music service. Will they also start music store like itunes?

Sina Weibo have provided their music service "Wei Music(Micro Music)" since June 2011. But they recently updated its service and at the same time changed its service name to "Music People".

Sina Weibo user can freely listen and manage the music on it. Furthermore, Sina Weibo user also can upload their music.

I think that this upload feature is good for indies musician or band, because they can get a chance to be heard by a lot of Sina Weibo users in the low costs.


But at the same time, I think that Sina Weibo will start to sell the paid music like itunes. There are two reasons that I think so.

1. Monetization is the most important challenge for them in this year.
2. They already started to provide the virtual money on their service, such as Weibi or Weibo Wallet.


The stage is already set. Let's keep the attention continuously to their action.


Source => Music People

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SDO mobile will also release the Firefox OS based smart watch after the Android based one.

SDO mobile published that they will release the Android based smart watch a few days ago, but they said that they will also release the Firefox OS based smart watch in near future.

They said that they will release its Android based version in June, but the release date of its Firefox OS version isn't still decided.

This smart watch is named "Bambook Smart Watch", and it has the features of networking, SMS, GPS, the recording data or informations and so forth. Furthermore according to the news, it has the cooperation feature with some consumer electronics.


SDO mobile have provide e-book for a long time in China, and they are the leader of this market. But as I explained before, the growth speed of the e-book market in China is too slow, so they also provided the Android smartphone "Bambook smartphone" as their new business.

Recently, Apple's iWatch has draws some people's attention in China too, but we have to watch whether their smart watch also will have draws people's attention or not.


Source => TechWeb

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Sina Weibo enter into the mobile payment market. Do they have a chance of success?

Sina Weibo published their own payment system "Weibo Wallet" last December, but recently they also published its service for mobile users.

Now they provide only the Android client and mobile browser version, but they said that they will also provide its iPhone and Windows client soon.

I downloaded the Android client and tried it.

  

It can be charged the money from bank, mobile phone and so forth, and the user can pay the electric, water and gas bills from it as same as the PC version.


According to the recent report by CNNIC, mobile payment user is rapidly increasing in China. Furthermore, MIIT estimated that the scale of mobile payment market in China will be about 24 billion USD in 2013, and its market will continue 40% growth in the next few year.

Sina Weibo would like to monetize soon, and also in the view of its market growth, it's make sense that they will enter into the mobile payment market. But there are many strong rival like Alipay in this market. Furthermore, Unionpay and each banks are also watching vigilantly for a chance.

Sina Weibo have over 500 million users now, so "Weibo Wallet" user may be smoothly increasing. But the view of real business, I think that they will continue facing the tough challenge for a while. Let's keep attention to their actions.


Source => Weibo Wallet, ChinaIRN

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5 Tips of WeChat You Might Not Know

A vice president of Tencent Zhang were interviewed by a business magazine few weeks ago, and he talked about interesting 5 tips of WeChat as follows at that time.

1. The "Shake" function is the entrance for the each services.
WeChat have the "Shake" function as following picture:

Basically, the user uses its function to find the new friends on WeChat.
But now it has the new interesting function to understand the music name that user is just playing the music on their device.

     

I played the music that is saved on my Android smartphone, and then I tried the "Shake" function of WeChat. As the result, WeChat gave me the correct music name!
I think this function help users when user listen the radio or TV on their devices, and they don't know the its music name :)

Mr. Zhang said this is the one of example that this function exists as for the entrance of each services. And he said that they will continue to develop the new activation method in future too.


2. They don't provide the special client for iPad.
They already provide the client for iPhone, and actually its client also support iPad. So this means that they have not provided the special client for iPad.

In China, there are the custom that service provider separately provide the client for iPhone and iPad. For the example, Sina Weibo do that as following picture.

"Because most of the iPad don't have the SIM card, so the user have the limitation of place to use WeChat. This is not match with the concept of WeChat", Mr. Zhang said.


3. The function of posting only text character in the "Moments" exists only for the internal testing.
WeChat have the social function "Moments", and the user usually post the text character with pictures. But if the user long-click the icon of camera, the user can post the text only message as follows.

Mr. Zhang said that this function is for the internal testing, and they basically want the user to post the message with picture on it.


4. Tencent has developed the voice recognition feature by themselves.
They provided the voice recognition feature from version 4.5 of their apps, but Mr. Zhang said that they developed this function by themselves.
According to him, there are over 200 people in the WeChat team, and 30 people of them take charge of developing this voice recognition feature.


5. They regret that the main color of WeChat became green.

This is like a joke, but Mr. Zhang said that the main color of WeChat was blue at first. And they changed its color by each version at first, and they someday changed its color to green. When they changed its color to green, WeChat already became popular, and then the time was past. So they lost the chance to change its color from green to other color.

But I feel that green color is very match with WeChat... :)


Actually, there are 10 tips in the original article, but I selected 5 tips from there. If you are interested in other 5 tips, please visit here. That is written in Chinese...


Source => Sina IT

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Tencent CEO Ma declared that they will start monetization of WeChat in a few months.

Tencent CEO Ma declared in a interview that they will start monetization of WeChat in a few months.

He gave some example of monetization method as follows.

1. Mobile game on WeChat
As I explained before, over half of their revenue is earned from game. Furthermore their rival LINE already got some constant success in this model, so I think that it's natural thing.

2. Mobile payment on WeChat
He said that this payment business focus to micropayment at first, and as a example of it, they will start paying fee of the taxi via WeChat.

3. Marketing activity of corporate users on WeChat
As I explained before, they already provided its management platform for corporate users.They will expand this platform service, and they also start advertisement service for the corporate users.


They already got a new domain "wechat.com", and they also started to provide the new management platform at the same time.

This new management platform supports English menu :)


Besides the monetization, he said that they accelerate the overseas deployment hereafter.
As I explained before, they already have constant users in India, Thailand and Malaysia.And they recently established the office in US, and they will open joint-venture company in Indonesia.

Monetization and overseas deployment may be the main keyword of this year for WeChat.


Source => TechWeb

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[PR] Anhui OSS strengthen mobile solution of Weibo style enterprise social networking system “Crowdroid for Business” for making more smooth your enterprise mobile collaboration.

Today, our company published the new press release as follows, so please allow me to introduce it here.

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 Anhui Opensource Software inc. （Anhui OSS, President：Takamitsu Nakao） announced that published the lightweight WAP version and iPhone/iPad client to strengthen our mobile solution.

 Enterprise social networking system is increasingly needed in all over the world, but its mobile solution is also increasingly needed at the same time. We have provided its Android client for many years, but we start to provide its lightweight WAP version and iOS client to meet this expectation.

  According to the report by Forrester Research, the scale of enterprise socila networking market will be 6.4 billion USD in 2016. And its market is growing in China too, according to the report by CCW research, the scale of its market gained 246% growth in 2012.

 Because of this, its mobile solution is also increasingly needed at the same time. The number of mobile internet user is rapidly increasing. For example, its number in China was 420 million people in the end of 2012, and its increase number was larger than the whole internet users.

 We have provided its Android client for many years, but we start to provide its lightweight WAP version and iOS client to meet this expectation at this time.

 The detail of lightweight WAP version and iOS client is as follows:


1. Lightweight WAP Version
    According to the report by CNNIC, the mobile internet users in China were 420 million people in the end of 2012, and mobile device already became the top of all method connecting to the internet in China.

    But on the other hand, Baidu said that about 75% of mobile internet users in China were still using 2G connection in the last second quarter. So we start to provide the lightweight WAP version for these users. The UI of lightweight WAP version is very simple, so such users also can realize mobile collaboration very smoothly.
You can see the login page of lightweight WAP version here.
http://saaswap.crowdroid.com/

          




2. iPhone/iPad client “Crowdroid”
    iPhone have the second large market share in the smartphone market all over the world. And iPad also have the great popularity, and the user is increasing the day by day. According to the report by MIIT, the shipment number of smartphone in China was over 250 million units in 2012. We have provided its Android client for a long time, but we start to provide iOS Client at this time, so we can cover the most of smartphone users.

 


You can download its iOS client from here (free):
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/crowdroid/id598535437

You can check the manual of Crowdroid here.
http://www.anhuioss.com/en/crowdroid/ios/manual1.html

We define these two products as prologue of enhancing our mobile solution, and we will add chat function to this in near future.



■About Crowdroid for Business(CFB)
CFB is a Weibo style enterprise social networking system that is suitable to mobile using too. CFB support three language(English, Japanese and Chines), and it have easy translation feature, so it is useful for using in the international companies/ communities. CFB also support the communication of n-to-n, so customers can understand the situation in their companies clearly, timely, easily.

Its detail and screen shot： http://www.anhuioss.com/en/crowdroidbiz/function.html

■About its price and license
Weibo style enterprise social networking system “Crowdroid for Business” have three types edition.
[Provide as License]
・Crowdroid for Business License Edition
[Provide as SaaS]
・Crowdroid for Business Professional Edition
・Crowdroid for Business Free Edition

※You can use "Crowdroid for Business Free Edition" freely within 30 users from here.
http://saas.crowdroid.com/
Lightweight WAP version： http://saaswap.crowdroid.com/

You can check the price list of each versions here:
http://www.anhuioss.com/en/crowdroidbiz/price.html

■About Anhui OSS
１）Company: Anhui Open Source Software Inc.
２）Legal Representative: Takamitsu Nakao
３）Address: Room402, Ma'anshan Software Park, No.798 Huolishan Road, Ma'anshan City, Anhui Province, China
４）Established Date: July 1, 2009
５）Main Service:
- Development of own products (Weibo style enterprise social networking system, Weibo and Twitter client for Android and so forth).
- Provide the outsourcing services related to social networking, Android apps, HTML5 apps and so forth.
- Provide the total consulting of related to open source software.
６）Registered Capital: 1,000,000 RMB
More：http://www.anhuioss.com/en/company.html

■Contact Us
Anhui Open Source Software Inc. Sales Team
http://www.anhuioss.com/en/ajaxmail/index.html
Twitter：@anhuioss_en(English)
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/weibo4biz


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Thanks!

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