Apply For Web Access of QQ

Written by Luyi Chen on January 1, 2009
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On the first day of the new year, Tencent relaunched its web-based QQ service. Now it’s called My QQ.

It’s linked from it’s official QQ website. From its appearance it’s not just a web version of the product, but a user login of the whole site. Maybe a web-based social network is coming.

Tencent started testing its web based QQ in 2006, originally at this address: webqq.qq.com. But it has been shut down for a while.

The service is not fully open yet. You will need to apply for the access.

A web-based QQ is absolutely needed, especially in some companies which block QQ port. There’re some services hacking the protocol to provide web-based QQ access. Now the day of these business is over.

Source: chinaz

139.com: China Mobile’s Social Network

Written by Luyi Chen on December 31, 2008
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139.comMaybe this is old news, but it’s new to me, or at least the domain is new. China Mobile launched a social network at 139.com. The service is said to be live since September, originally on a domain hard to remember.

You don’t need to register to the service as long as you have a mobile phone number (China Mobile number certainly). But currently most of you cannot activate your account unless you are in Guangdong province.

Although we haven’t seen inside the service, but a couple of things make me believe it’s unique.

This service is true identity based in nature. You don’t need to fill in your personal information. Right after you activated your account, your details are already in the system including your personal identity number.

The service lets you check your SMS on the web. You will believe it’s useful if you forget your cellphone in your home one day. It also has a digg like feature to track the most forwarded short messages. Those joking stuff. Look forward to have a look.

Email address book and cellphone contacts are two important social data. While most of the SNS are using email address book, there’s no real use of cellphone contacts. Since this is China mobile’s service, you will feel safe to upload it. Or maybe they already know it.

There’s no need to compare website features with other social networks. No one can truly connect cellphone with the web other than the carriers. China Mobile has been actively developing web based service this year including this personalized homepage launched in August.

China Unicom has a similar service at u-powerbook. But this is another world to me.

Ju690 Shows You What Chinese Users Are Sharing

Written by Luyi Chen on December 29, 2008
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ju690Ju690 is a social memetracker, which we firstly reported in July 2007, when it was still called onejoo. Since then the service has been improved a lot. The newest addition is a social recommendation aggregator.

Different from earlier ones like Zhuaxia hot article and Douban 9taps, which is centralized that you will have to vote for the article on these sites. Ju690’s social recommendation considers link sharing in other places like Google Reader and Twitter.

While the original motivation of Ju690 is anti-link sharing, since target users don’t share link a lot, the adoption of link sharing tools like Google Reader and Twitter has driven it back to the track.

The layout of the main page is simple. It’s a digg like layout, with three tabs: latest, hottest and upcoming. You will see where these votes come from under the article. In case the original site is unavailable there’s a cached version of the article.

Ju690 is currently a project for research purpose.

Sogou Released Its Own Internet Browser

Written by Tangos on December 22, 2008
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Sogou, the search engine service under Sohu, today released a Internet browser, Sogou Browser. It is an IE kernel-based browser with some features to improve users experience.

Sogou Browser claims that it is using a multi-task asynchronous browsing technology which can make each tab browse the web independently. When a tab is crashed, other tabs will not be affected, which is similar to Google Chrome. To provide better online video-watching experience, Sogou Browser enable you to play only flash video on a web page in an independent windows, which can be put on top of all other windows and can be resize freely, then you can watch videos which you are browsing other tabs.

To address the Internet usage problem of China’s university students, Sogou Browser has an embedded proxy feature. In China, students in Universities are using CERNET (China Education and Research Network), which does not allow them to access overseas websites freely. Sogou Browser adds a proxy which enable users inside CERNET to access overseas websites.

Actually, Internet browser is an important software segment in China. There are several browsers in China which are using IE kernel, the most famous one is Maxthon which has been downloaded for over 177 million times, and on the list of top 10 international products of 2008 by ReadWriteWeb. Tencent also has its IE kernel browser called Tencent Traveler(TT). Another one is The World, Qihoo released a safe browser early this year based on The World and Qihoo 360safe security software. Even on mobile applications, there is a very popular Chinese mobile browser called UCWeb. Besides those local-made browser, both Firefox and Opera also want to take more shares in China market by offering special Chinese version. Last month, Firefox launched a Firefox China Version specially made for Chinese users. Opera released its China version just in last week.

Papaya: Turning Your Phonebook into A Mobile SNS

Written by Tangos on December 10, 2008
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Papaya Mobile, which is a startup co-founded by an ex-Googler, who worked on mobile applications and services in Google, and one of her alumni in Tsinghua University. Papaya currently only has English version, and only targets to overseas market.

On its website, Papaya describe itself as “a mobile phone application that allows you to communicate with your friends cheaply and easily. It turns your phonebook into the best social network”. Yes, it intends to build a mobile social networks, taking advantage of importing your phonebook, and adding your contacts as your friends automatically, once they register Papaya. Then you can send free sms and make cheap call with your friends on Papaya.

It even has a built-in mobile IM function for you to send instant messenges and share files with friends, but it does not reinvent wheel by itself, it just allows you to use AIM, Yahoo IM, MSN IM, Google Talk, and ICQ on you mobile phone to chat with your friends.

Besides these, what I think most interesting is that Papaya has a online casual game platform, currently featuring over ten games you can play with friends. They think game is an important feature in a mobile SNS to improve users stickiness, and also there is good chance of monetizing the SNS via games. Si Shen, the ex-Googler, also told me that they will build it as an open mobile game platform later.

Though Papaya has so many features, now its java version is only about 120k. Si believe that to keep it small size and low bandwidth consumption is also Papaya’s competitive advantage. Now it has kjava version and iPhone version available. Si said they will launch an Android version soon.

keep looking »