Apps for All Purposes
Despite TikToks global surprise, most Chinese apps success is confined to the countrys boundaries, where laws and regulations protect them from foreign competition.
The peculiar Chinese app ecosystem is also full of weird surprises. For example, the Communist Party launched an app for learning president Xi Jinpings doctrine last January. Users get points for watching videos of his speeches, read news about him and pass tests about government policies. Reportedly, cadres, civil servants and some state-owned companies employees are required to log in every day and get a certain amount of points. Otherwise, as posted by some on Weibo, they will be criticised.
And there lies one of the reasons why Chinese apps, although as innovative as their Western counterparts, are not as popular in the rest of the world. We see concerns about privacy. People outside of China dont trust Chinese companies to follow their countries laws and regulations, concedes a Tencent employee speaking on condition of anonymity. China is not cool. Thats not in the countrys DNA yet. And in the same way many foreign companies misread China. Chinese companies also have a hard time understanding foreign audiences, underlines Alfaro.
But there is a striking exception to this rule of thumb: TikTok, known in China as Douyin. This 15-second-video app developed by Bytedance became the worlds most downloaded last year and broke the 500-million-active-users mark last June.
Hu admits its highly addictive You just scroll down for more and more videos and time flies. Sometimes I think I will just (take) a few minutes break (but) I end up spending an hour, she says. In the screen, a clever algorithm plays cute videos of cats, shocking clips of accidents and make up tutorials recorded by hordes of wannabe influencers. Dancing to the tune of Billboards most popular tunes is what many millennials, mostly girls, use the app for. According to statistics offered by Bytedance, 22% of users spend more than an hour on TikTok every day.
The app ventured abroad just when Vine [the short video pioneer app] disappeared. It has filled that void and managed to attract even more users with powerful video editing tools and an easy to use effect palette youngsters love. In addition, its social network features make it easy to mass-share videos and create an active community, analyses Alfaro.
Despite TikToks global surprise, most Chinese apps success is confined to the countrys boundaries, where laws and regulations protect them from foreign competition. Would foreign apps thrive in China without the Great Firewall? Alfaro believes they wont necessarily do, citing Google that left China in 2010 after refusing to censor content.
When I arrived in China in 2011, Google was still accessible in the country (albeit through a Hong Kong version). Yet, Baidu was undoubtedly the most popular and Google was seldom used by the Chinese, Alfaro recounts. Something similar happened with WhatsApp, which remained accessible until last year.
Its penetration in China was marginal. So maybe it would be wrong to believe that every Chinese would be using Facebook if the Great Firewall hadnt been erected.
Hu agrees. She uses a VPN to circumvent the governments blockade and can therefore access all foreign apps and services. But she never searches the web with Google or use Google Maps while in China. She asks Baidu instead and finds her way with Baidu Maps. Even if we could search in Google, I find Baidu better suits our needs. Searches in Chinese are far more accurate and the same goes for the maps. Googles are often outdated. I believe there is some cultural gap that foreign apps cant bridge because of the peculiarities of the Chinese, concludes Hu with a shrug. ag
Zigor Aldama is the Far East Asia correspondent for Vocento, Spain's largest media group. His work often revolves around social and cultural issues.