Even though a report from Baidu said only 2.3% Chinese Internet users were using Tag, the Chinese social bookmarking market is not that quiet than we thought. Quite a few social bookmarking services have been running for a while, and the in-complete list includes QQ Bookmark, Baidu SouCang, Yahoo ShouCang, eYou, INU.cc, Gotou, Otag.cn, MyURLWorld, BBmao and of course Del.icio.us. However, none of them can really stand out.
I could not get the time to try all these online services, I think it must be an open discussion for every tag users to decide which is the best service. But from my humble opinion based on what I found and felt before I am typing here, I would give it thumb-up to QQ Bookmark (I know many of you will disagree on this, please shot me with your comments).
Training the Market
I still believe that if there is anyone can take an easy action to train the Chinese web2.0 market, it must be QQ. QQ’s kingdom is built on over 200million users, which is the fact that most of the Chinese startup hate but have to face. If QQ want to promote some new services, online or offline, either way could be huge impact on the market. E.g. Tencent’s portal site QQ.com now is ranked No.10 by Alexa.
Integration with QQ Instant Messenger
There is no doubt that QQ Bookmark has been considered as Tencent’s pilot web2.0 service. With the integration with QQ Instant Messenger, millions of QQ users can now retrieve their bookmarks directly on their QQ. It is a nature step and also the answer to how the QQ will train the market.
The Open-minded Giant
I recently had a very brief conversation with Gen of Mozilla Asia regarding the new Mozilla office in Beijing. What surprised me is actually not from Mozilla, but from QQ, because QQ has released its QQ Bookmark add-on (download) for Firefox. Having a Firefox add-on might not be a big deal in western Internet, but in China where only few people cares about Open-Source and the market sharing of Firefox is still far behind Internet Explorer and Maxthon, QQ has opened its mind and taken a very positive action.
Moreover, QQ also co-operated Microsoft and released its QQ Video Gadget beta (download) for Windows Vista. So what will you expect next from this Internet giant?
QQ Bookmark is Leading the Tencent’s Web2.0
Talked to Richard, the Director of QQ Innovation center, I have been told that the English version of QQ Bookmark is also under development. As a foreigner, you may never use QQ messenger, but most likely in the future, you could be QQ-ed by Tencent’s web2.0 service. Richard said that they would not put too much effort on promoting this service in the oversea market, but they felt Tencent should open the door to the global web2.0 market.
Social networking, social bookmarking, browser add-on, widget, globalization of web service, etc, Tencent is speeding up in its web2.0.
How much did u get from Tencent to write this?
hey, you are kidding me, right?
I never got paid by anyone/any companies which I profiled on MOBINODE. If you have any nice startup/companies you think I should profile, feel free let me know. If you disagree with what I am blogging here, leave your opinion, pls.
best,