When condom maker Durex wants to send an intimate message to customers in China, it uses a homegrown instant messaging platform called WeChat which has taken the country by storm in just three years.
WeChat -- known as "weixin", or micro-message in Chinese -- has similarities to WhatsApp, the Silicon Valley start-up that Facebook bought for $19 billion last month.
Now the CEO of its parent company hopes the service can go global, branding it China's "most hopeful product for internationalization" -- but concerns about cybersecurity could hamper its ambitions.
WeChat is more versatile than WhatsApp, allowing its more than 300 million users to send text, photos, videos and voice messages over smartphones, find each other by shaking their devices -- a common dating technique -- and even book and pay for taxis.
Its popularity has gone beyond individuals, with corporations and even the government using the application developed by Chinese Internet giant Tencent for their internal and public communications. Full story...
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WeChat -- known as "weixin", or micro-message in Chinese -- has similarities to WhatsApp, the Silicon Valley start-up that Facebook bought for $19 billion last month.
Now the CEO of its parent company hopes the service can go global, branding it China's "most hopeful product for internationalization" -- but concerns about cybersecurity could hamper its ambitions.
WeChat is more versatile than WhatsApp, allowing its more than 300 million users to send text, photos, videos and voice messages over smartphones, find each other by shaking their devices -- a common dating technique -- and even book and pay for taxis.
Its popularity has gone beyond individuals, with corporations and even the government using the application developed by Chinese Internet giant Tencent for their internal and public communications. Full story...
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