The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 37 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Chan: WeChat is a mobile operating system, not a chat app
“If you think about WeChat, it, it's not Fair to classify it as a chat application, and it's not fair to draw all the conclusions that WeChat has achieved and say that all messaging apps can achieve that, because WeChat is much more an operating system. It is m…”
Chan: A WeChat partnership virtually guarantees success for startups in China
“If you have some kind of partnership with WeChat, that is Almost instant guaranteed success for any startup.”
Colford: American tech companies are increasingly copying Chinese platforms like WeChat
“You look at technologies like WeChat, and increasingly American, you're seeing American companies actually copy Chinese companies.”
Xu: WeChat drove mobile payment adoption by framing transfers as red envelopes
“And actually somebody at WeChat told me that when they tried rolling out mobile payments between people and stores, people were very distrustful of you know, why, why would I send you my payment information on my cell phone that seems so hackable? As soon as t…”
Messina: Searching for the 'WeChat of the West' is unhelpful
“There is, and has been this meme, which I have nothing to do with and don't think that it's that useful of figuring out what the WeChat of the West is going to be. And it's actually not that interesting of a question.”
Pierce: Facebook Messenger lacks the network leverage of WeChat
“Facebook Messenger, which is probably the closest US analog to WeChat because WeChat in the US is nothing like WeChat in China, which is really interesting, but Facebook Messenger has this payment backbone. They have sort of an app store. It's not quite the sa…”
Balaji: China uses red COVID tracking codes to restrict travel and disable WeChat
“In China, for example, like people their COVID codes are used. The red and green zones are often marked as like COVID red, and then they can't travel. Their WeChat doesn't work.”
Chan: WeChat Mini Programs are underappreciated and their potential is unrealized
“Mini programs is something that they've launched, which I actually think is totally underappreciated. And you haven't really began to see, you haven't begun to see the power of the mini programs concept in China yet.”
Chan: WeChat grew payment adoption by discounting Didi taxi rides
“The red envelopes is a massive enabler for payment information and for group chats. But even aside from that, WeChat also did have hacks. There was a period of time where if you were hailing a taxi, a DD car through WeChat, it was discounted. So they definitel…”
Chan: Google Instant Apps mirrors WeChat's strategy of eliminating user friction
“What excites me about instant apps is it really does eliminate friction for the end consumer, and it also reflects to me that Google understands something that WeChat has known for years, and it's critical to the success of official accounts on WeChat, which i…”
Evans: Facebook Messenger lacks WeChat's circular network effect
“WeChat has achieved the point that its success is circular, that you have to be on WeChat because everyone's on WeChat. Everyone's on WeChat because everyone's on WeChat. All brands are on it. And Facebook clearly isn't in that position at all. Certainly not o…”
Chan: Over one-third of WeChat users have linked banking credentials
“WeChat flourishes because over a third of their users already have their banking credentials tied to their account. And that's why So much commerce can happen with what, just one tap.”
Chan: Text-based chatbots failed on WeChat in China
“When WeChat first launched official accounts, a lot of them were more text-based as well with very Simple very simple graphics. They didn't have the menus at the bottom just yet, and a lot of official accounts weren't focused on the WebView concept and the app…”
Connie Chan: WeChat does not charge developers for official accounts
“WeChat since inception has been very developer friendly and very friendly to third parties giving them a lot of flexibility in what kind of features and functionality they want to include, but they also don't charge to create an official account.”
Chan: WeChat accounts are essential for daily life in top Chinese cities
“It's very difficult to function now in some of the top tier cities without having a WeChat account. When you meet someone, they're not necessarily likely to give you their phone number or their email address, but they will share their WeChat account with you.”
Pierce: Super-apps are highly resilient against partial-feature competitors
“It's really hard to unseat because if you're doing 12 things well and somebody comes along and does, you know, six of those things, even if they do all six better, you're not going to leave the thing that does 12 things well.”
Pierce: Replicating friend messaging mechanics for brands gives platforms immense power
“If you go where people are already talking to their friends, and then you just, like, replicate that mechanic, but you're talking to something other than your friends, and You can go anywhere.”
Chan: WeChat limits comment visibility to mutual friends to protect privacy
“So on the moment section when you're posting photos or posting links, they made one decision for functionality that I think is really interesting, which is, if I comment on some photo or anything you posted, only our mutual friends will see my comment, and the…”
Chan: Switching internal app tabs is superior to OS-level app navigation
“I find that less of a hassle than closing out an application, swiping my screen to the next grid of different applications, finding the right one, and then doing whatever I need to do, and then closing that application and going back. So navigating. Yeah, navi…”
Chan: Tencent caps WeChat Moments ads to just two per day
“And so on WeChat moments, your equivalent of your Facebook newsfeed, they've capped the number of ads to just two per day.”
Chan: WeChat launched business accounts four years before Facebook bots
“WeChat launched its very first official account in April of 2012. Four years later, Mark Zuckerberg launched messaging bots for businesses.”
Connie Chan: True mobile-first apps design specifically for smartphone hardware
“In my mind, what makes WeChat mobile first Is that they have completely unshackled themselves from the constraints of designing for a PC, and they utilize features that are mobile-specific, that are specific to mobile hardware.”
Chan: WeChat Forces Brands to Acquire Followers Without a Central Directory
“Now that last statement's a very important point, because in China, when you're creating these official accounts, it's up to you as the brand of business to go get all of your followers. WeChat doesn't create a store or a list of top brands for consumers to fo…”
Chan: Uniqlo's WeChat Campaign Drove 30% Sales Boost and 1M Followers
“A third of the people who received this photo shared it on their WeChat news feed. There was a 30% increase And sales for items that were featured in this campaign. And Uniqlo followers went from 400,000 To over a million.”
Chan: WeChat drove Chinese QR adoption by making it primary for friends
“In China, what really helped it take off is WeChat made it front and center, a primary way of adding a friend. So as opposed to having to scan for a particular username, because a username is not even required when you set up a WeChat account or knowing their …”
Chan: WeChat features a Siri-like voice assistant returning visual outputs
“And there's another, almost like a Siri type product that lives inside WeChat right now. So you can send it an audio message and it will show you a visual response.”
Chan: WeChat enables IT admins to prevent message forwarding
“From the IT side, actually, they even have unique functionality where they can control for confidentiality. They can set it so that you can't forward specific messages. They can tear your access so you only see certain parts of official accounts.”
Connie Chan: Audio messaging on WeChat is super common in China
“Voicemail might not be common in the States, but leaving an audio message on WeChat is super common in China.”
Chan: WeChat official accounts function as web pages wrapped in-app
“Whenever you interact with an official account, that official account can basically take you to something that's similar to a webpage that's just wrapped inside of WeChat.”
Chan: WeChat payment system credentials work seamlessly across all official accounts
“Is WeChat can then basically have you logged into all of these official accounts and also pass on your payment credentials, and so rather than typing in my credit card information every time I'm transacting with a new official account, I only have to link my p…”
Chan: QR code scanning in apps is far more common in China than US
“Well, I think one area of app design that's very common in China, but not as seen in the States, is the usage of QR codes and the usage of the scanning feature in any app. And WeChat is actually it's heavily reliant on the scanning feature. So, for example, yo…”
Chan: WeChat hosts over 10 million official accounts
“There are also ten million different official accounts out there, actually more than ten million, and a lot of them are unable to accept payments, and so once you enter in your payments once on the WeChat wallet you can basically use transactions throughout th…”
Chan: Advertising accounts for less than 20% of Tencent's revenue
“This is the revenue distribution for Tencent, one of China's most successful consumer internet companies, the makers of the globally famous WeChat. And yet advertising is still less than 20% of their revenues.”
Chan: WeChat serves as a remote control for offline physical services
“Right now, you can use WeChat not just to chat with your friends, but to unlock the bicycle next to you, to order food at a restaurant, To book a karaoke bar.”
Chan: Walmart uses WeChat mini programs in China for retargeting and self-checkout
“When you're shopping in the supermarket, you use WeChat, a mini program, and you check out as you go. Now it's great. Consumers get this frictionless checkout experience. You don't have to wait in line. That's fantastic. But the real winner is actually Walmart…”