Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Elon Musk’s Twitter plans may take inspiration from Chinese super apps



How Elon Musk may be taking inspiration from China's WeChat for Twitter

Elon Musk’s revived $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter sparked contemporary debate over what the billionaire will do with the service if he finally owns it.

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted that purchasing Twitter is an “accelerant to creating X, the every thing app.” He didn’t present additional particulars.

Musk could also be hinting towards so-called “tremendous apps” that are in style in China and different elements of Asia and pioneered by the likes of Chinese language know-how large Tencent.

Tremendous apps is a time period to explain an app that usually acts as a one-stop store for all of your cell wants. For instance, you would possibly order a taxi or meals through the app and on the identical time do funds and messaging. This eliminates the necessity to have a number of apps for various features.

Chinese language app WeChat, run by Tencent, is the most important tremendous app on the earth, with over a billion customers.

In WeChat, customers can message folks, do cell banking, pay for issues on-line or in retailer by scanning a barcode, play video games, put up movies, do on-line procuring, hail a automotive and lots of different issues.

When Musk talks about “the every thing app,” he could possibly be interested by WeChat.

The Tesla CEO has beforehand expressed admiration for WeChat calling the app “nice” throughout a city corridor with Twitter workers in June. Musk stated there isn’t any WeChat equal outdoors of China.

“And I believe that there is a actual alternative to create that,” Musk instructed workers. “You mainly reside on WeChat in China as a result of it is so helpful and so useful to your day by day life. And I believe if we may obtain that, and even near that with Twitter, it might be an immense success.”

Musk stated that he needs no less than a billion folks utilizing Twitter, up from 237.8 million on the finish of the second quarter.

Tencent runs the ever present Chinese language messaging app WeChat. The corporate has a brief type video characteristic with within the app and has started to monetize that by way of video adverts within the feed. Tencent stated such adverts may turn into a “substantial” income sooner or later.

Budrul Chukrut | Sopa Photos | Lightrocket | Getty Photos

One in all WeChat’s greatest options is WeChat Pay. This can be a characteristic the place customers can scan a barcode in a retailer to pay through their cell or they will ship cash to mates through the chat operate. WeChat Pay will also be used for purchases on-line.

Musk stated throughout the city corridor that he thinks that funds inside Twitter could be an “attention-grabbing factor to do.”

Nevertheless, tremendous apps like WeChat have not actually taken off in a giant means in Europe, the U.S. and different western markets.

WeChat in the meantime is closely censored in China, one thing Musk is unlikely to do with Twitter, given his previous criticisms of the platform’s content material moderation technique which the billionaire feels has stifled free speech.



Originally published at Gold Coast News HQ

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