You can imagine the sighs of relief at Tencent head office. Built on the pretty much nonexistent TikTok social graph, with no iOS version. See moreįirst impressions of DuoShan: Yet another Snapchat clone. However, members of the TechNode team tell me that it’s very similar to Douyin and that it feels like a video-based messenger app crossed with Vine. I have yet to try it as it’s still in testing on iOS. From all accounts it is very close to Snapchat. Its name translates as “many sparkles” or “very shiny.” It’s perhaps the only product Bytedance has gone out its way to announce. Duoshan at the doorĮnter Duoshan, the messaging app from Bytedance released in Beijing on Jan. But its 24-hour lifespan videos won’t be enough to make a dent. With the launch of its Stories-like Time Capsule in version 7.0, WeChat is certainly trying to carve out its piece of the short-video market, too. It has already reached 250 million daily active users (DAU) and is playing in the rapidly growing short-video market. Started in September 2016, the app known as TikTok internationally allows users to record, view, and share short videos. Douyin, on the other hand, is flashy and seductive. WeChat may be reliable, but it’s also ordinary. It’s not surprising that the youthful appeal of new arrivals such as Douyin and Bullet Messenger is strong. WeChat is a mature product with more than 1 billion users. While the overall change seems dramatic in hindsight, the development cycles are glacial with major updates coming with more than one year between them-6.0 was released in 2014. From simple messaging formats like Kik and WhatsApp at the beginning, to voice and video messages, short videos (aka WeChat’s Sights), QR codes, a Facebook-like feed Moments, to mini programs and now the WeChat version of Stories and UI overhaul in 7.0, which launched two days before Christmas.
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WeChat has changed dramatically since it was first released in 2011. In the era of rapid heating and cooling consumer tech cycles, China’s young mobile users expect their experience to constantly improve and seek out new forms of “play” that hold their attention. But the Chinese internet is hungry, perhaps even starving, for something new. To say that WeChat is the Chinese internet is certainly an exaggeration, but it’s still pretty darn close. The WeChat team-and Tencent as a whole-should be worried about Bytedance products taking more and more user attention, but Bytedance’s platform play just isn’t enough to topple the reigning champion. The multitude of messaging announcements this week has raised some interesting questions about the future of social networks in China in general and the fate of WeChat in particular.