How to get the 460GB permanent space in the 'Baidu Cloud' without any charge.

As you know, Baidu is the most popular company who is providing the search engine in China. And Baidu also provides other solutions to internet users, and this Baidu Cloud is also one of their services.

To put it simply, it's the service it is like the Google Drive.

They provide the 15GB space to users without any charge, but if the user would like to get more space, it's basically needed suitable costs.

But now, they promote a campaign that Baidu give 460GB permanent space without any charge. *Of course, it is needed some process to get it :)

Today, I would like to explain how you can get it.

At first, you have to register the account of Baidu here.
And if you don't have a cellphone in China, you have to click the tab that is marked the red frame to register it with your email address.

After inputting your email address, the password and verification code, you have to click that is marked the blue frame to finish this registration.

If you successfully finish this registration, go back to the campaign page to login to Baidu Cloud.

To login, you have to click the green frame button at the upper right corner of the above picture. After you input your registered email, password and verification code, it means that you already got the chance to join this campaign.


There are two steps to get 460GB permanent space here as follows.

1. Download its Windows or Macintosh client, and after that, access to the Baidu Cloud from its client.

At first you have to click the icon of PC to download its client.
*The icon of the left side is client for Windows, and the right side is for Macintosh.

After downloading, you have to start its client, and have to login with Baidu account on it.  After that, you can find a popup that is written the button of "领取100G", so you have to click that button. That's all. After that, you can find that you already got its 100GB space.

2. Download its smartphone client, and after that, click the blue frame button.

This step is very simple. At first, you have to click the button of each smartphone picture that you usually use to download its client. *for example, the button of Android. After that, the action you have to do is only to click the blue frame button.

That's all. And you can get 360GB additional space.


Actually, this campaign has the three steps, and this campaign is named 1T (it means 1TB) one. But to clear the last step, you have to pay 1 RMB via electric money. I know 1 RMB is not so expensive, but if you don't have the account of bank in China or any payment cards like Alipay, you can't get it.

This blog has a lot of access from outside of China, so I said "460GB", and I explained the only two steps :)

Baidu Cloud is very useful to share files with people who lives in China. If you have an interest, let's get it!


Source => The campaign page of Baidu Cloud

Alibaba will also enter the battle of the IM market in China. They have a plan to collaborate with China Mobile.

WeChat already have about 500 million users, and Yixin also got the good start last week. So the IM market in China is becoming more and more hot, but it seems that Alibaba, who is the giant of the EC market in China, also would like to enter this battle by re-promoting their IM tool 'Laiwang'.

There are the two verifications for this.

1. Alibaba CEO sent the internal email to start the bounty system of using 'Laiwang' to the all of staff last week.
According to the leak, their bounty system is for encouraging to use 'Laiwang' to their staff, and it is said that the most potent person can get 100,000 RMB (= 16,210USD) bonus.

2. Alibaba started to consult with China Mobile the chance of collaboration in this market.
According to the insider, Alibaba recently started to consult the possibility of collaboration with China Mobile by this 'Laiwang', and it may be that they would like to follow the success of Yixin.


Alibaba already acquired 18% share of Sina Weibo on April, and they already started to accelerate their social media solutions. But they may would like to get the killer tool of IM to accelerate more this area, so I think that its action is very natural.

But its Sina Weibo also have their IM tool 'Meyou', and a company that Sina invested before also recently publish the IM tool 'WeMeet'.

Alibaba and Sina will go to the each way in this area, or also will have the collaboration as same as Weibo... We have to continue watching their actions as ever.


Source => TechWeb, BiaNews

Yixin also may get involved in trouble of their trademark right. The other company has already filed the trademark of "Yixin" last September.

As I said last time, Yisin has still had some system trouble, but it can be said that the start dash of Yixin was successful.

But the new trouble was revealed, it is the problem of trademark right. According to the news, a Beijing based company already filed the trademark right of "Yixin" last September.

Their filing category was also No.38 that was categorized as the communication.

The end of last year, WeChat also got in trouble in the trademark right. As I said at that time, the trademark right is basically preferred the earlier filing, so there is a possibility that Yixin have to change their name, or have to pay the royalty of this trademark right.

To make matters worse, in the case of WeChat (Weixin), the other company filed the trademark right of "Weixin" was only one week earlier than Tencent. Furthermore Weixin had been already a well-known word as a service of Tencent at that time. But in this case, the other company filed the trademark of "Yixin" in 11 months earlier than China Telecom or Netease.

Of course, nobody knew that "Yixin" is the service of China Telecom or Netease at that time. 

According to the news on June, the trouble of the trademark right "Weixin" also have not been solved yet. So we have to continue watching these two troubles as ever.

Source => ifeng, TechWeb, CNNB

Yixin still have some problem, but it was a good turnout. In 24 hours after publishing, Yixin got more than a million users.

Last time, I introduced about 'Yixin' that is co-produced IM tool by China Telecom and Netease.

According to their official information, it made a good start just after its publishing, and Yixin got more than a million users in 24 hours.

And Yixin got the 1st ranking of social category in the App store that night, and it also got the 2nd ranking in all of free apps on there.

About the other number, there were more than 300,000 pictures in its social feature, and there were 1 million times SMS sending, and there were 400,000 times voicemail communications.

Actually, some user said that its voice quality is much better than WeChat, and my friends or colleagues also said that it seems it's better than WeChat.

As I said last time, they have a target that they will get more than 100 million users in the six months, but they announced a new target that they will get more than 10 million users till the end of this month.

But on the other hand, it's true that Yixin has a lot of trouble with registration, SMS communication, voicemail and so forth. About these troubles, they promised to solve as soon as possible on their official account of Sina Weibo.

There are some mortifying things other than these troubles. It's the registration from the oversea. Now there are some difficulties in the registration from oversea as follows:

- iOS version of Yixin cannot download from out of China.

*It seems that there is the regional limitation.

- The registration of Yixin is needed the mobile phone number of China.

- The menu of Yixin supports only simplified Chinese now.

*In the app store, they wrote that it supports English and simplified Chines, but actually it seems it doesn't support.

About the Android version of it, you can download its apk file from their official site, but there are still remains the problem of registration and its menu.

About this, there is nothing for it but to wait their correspondence.

According to the news, the stock price of Netease increased 20% compared to before publishing Yixin. It can be said that their start dash was successful, so let's watch their action and the market response from now on too.

Source => DF Daily, Netease economy

China Telecom and Netease formally published their collaboration IM tool "Yixin". They will establish a joint venture for beating WeChat.

China Telecom and Netease held a co-event today, and they formally published the collaboration IM tool "Yixin" today.

 


They announced following things at the event.

- They will establish a joint venture soon to promote Yixin.
According to the some sources, the investment ratio of this company is 7 (China Telecom) to 3 (Netease), and all of the investment amount is 200 million RMB (= 32.41 million USD).

- They aim to gain more than 100 million registered users and more than 50 million active users in the six months.

- China Telecom will pre-install this "Yixin" to their providing smartphones (not all).


And they also said that WeChat is their rival, but do they have a good chance of winning? Let's check the difference of functional aspect with WeChat.

Yixin has the feature of chat (including group chat), social, emotion icon and QR code and so forth as same as WeChat has. And its UI is also similar to WeChat.

But Yixin has some interesting features that WeChat doesn't have as follows:

1. Yixin can send/ receive the SMS message that is not only the mobile phone of China Telecom, but also China Mobile and China Unicom.

   

I send an SMS message from Yixin to my China Telecom's mobile phone, there was no problem with it, and also no problem to reply SMS message to Yixin.

I think this feature is especially good to use when the people who are out of China would like to send the quick message to the people who are in China.

2. The linkage functions with E-mail.

This feature helps check your email on Yixin. It's only you have to do is that register your email on Yixin.

Its feature is very convenient, but there is some limitation at this time.
- This linkage function can work with only the email service that Netease or China Telecom provides.
- When I tried this function, receiving the email on Yixin is no problem, but replying or sending email from Yixin doesn't work well.

I think we have to wait for their improvement at this time.

3. Voicemail features to the mobile phone or fixed phone.

I think this feature is also especially good to use when the people who are out of China would like to send the quick message to the people who are in China.

But unfortunately, it seems that it doesn't work well at this time as far as I tried.


Well, I think that Yixin has a good chance to compete with WeChat, because they have some good functions that WeChat doesn't have.

WeChat was added a lot of topics such as game center, mobile payment and so forth. So I think that Yixin should not go this direction as same as Wechat, and they should go the way to become the total communication platform in all of on the user's mobile phone.
Ex.) linkage functions with email, SMS, Weibo, WeChat and so forth.

If they will go that way, I think it's possible to compete with WeChat.


Source => Sohu IT, ChinaByte, CNFOL

The number of WeChat monthly active users is 236 million people.

Tencent also published the performance reporting in the second quarter today.

You can download from here (PDF) its full version, but I would like to introduce some numbers that related to their social media area.

They announced that WeChat monthly active users is 235.8 million people, and this number increased 176.8% compared to the YoY.

Tencent recently does not officially publish the actual user numbers, but it is said that the number of WeChat registered users are more than 400 million people. This means their monthly active user rate is about 60%.

60% are high or low? According to a news, their rival LINE has about 90% of monthly active users rate. So it may be said that it's a little bit low.

Tencent CEO Ma said in this report that Tencent will continue to focus on the mobile solutions from now on too, and they recognize that WeChat will play a central role not only in the domestic market but also the oversea market.

WeChat has more than 70 million oversea users now, but their rival LINE already has more than 100 million oversea users. So firstly they have to catch LINE, and also have to increase the rate of active users.

By the way, I also would like to introduce the number that is related other social media services.

- The number of IM monthly active users were 818.5 million people, and this number increased 4.5 compared to YoY.

- Peak simultaneous online IM user accounts were 173.2 million people, and this number increased 4.0% compared to YoY.

- The number of Qzone monthly active users were 626.4 million people, and this number increased 4.8% compared to YoY.

I explained before that Tencent dominates more than 65% of mobile instant messenger market in China. But looking this report, I recognized the power of Tencent in Chinese social media market again.

Source => The performance reporting by Tencent (PDF)

Two things that Sina Weibo have the problem.

Sina published the performance reporting in the second quarter yesterday, and some number of Sina Weibo also became clear with this.

The total revenue of Sina Weibo was about 37.7 million USD in the second quarter, and it increased 46.1% compared to the last quarter. Among the revenue, the advertising revenue was 30 million USD, and the service revenue was 7.7 million USD.

About the advertising revenue increased more than 50% compared to the last quarter, but the service revenue was slight increase.

According to the annual reporting in 2012, 77% of Sina Weibo revenue was earned from the advertising revenue, other 23% of revenue was earned from service revenue.
But the rate of the advertising revenue in this quarter was about 85.7%, so it can be said that their dependence on the advertising revenue is more and more running high.

I think that this dependence (in other words 'bias') is the first problem for Sina Weibo, and I think that they have to strengthen other revenue more, such as the collaboration with Alibaba (It means "Social Commerce").


The second problem is the low rate of active users.

They announced that their daily active users were 54 million people, but their total registered user was over than 500 million people. It means that the rate of daily active users was only about 10%.

According to the news, the recent daily active user of Facebook was 699 million people. Compared to them, it can be said that the daily active users rate of Sina Weibo is very low.

Increasing the rate of active users have been the long term problem for Sina Weibo, but it can be said that it is still midway.


According to the news, PifferJaffray recently estimated that the market value of Sina Weibo is 6 billion USD, but this number is more than the value when Alibaba acquired 18% share of Sina Weibo in 586 million USD. And according to the some resources, Sina Weibo intends to list stocks independently in the future.


We have to keep watching whether their plan will achieve or not as ever.


Source => TechWeb, Sina Tech

A report said that 13.4% of the WeChat user already canceled to follow the official accounts. Why...?

Sootoo published the report that was written about the user activities on WeChat before, but they also published another interesting report that was written about user analytics at this time.

1. How did you get to know the official account?

#1 Already know on the other platform and so forth    55.7%
#2 QR code    39.1%
#3 Recommendation from the other person  36.2%
#4 Advertisement   27.4%
#5 Search   16.4%

Other   2.9%

About QR code, it has to put on somewhere like the official site or Weibo, so it can be said that this can categorize getting from "other site".


2. What is the purpose that you have followed the official accounts?

#1  For getting the special benefit or information    34.3%

#2  For paying attention to the hot topic or news   26.3%

#3  For the hobby or killing time   22.8%

#4  For the personnel exchange   14.4%

Other   2.2%




3. What type of the official account have you followed?

#1  News    65.5%

#2  Comedy   37.3%

#3  Science and technology   30+％

#5  Analects    17.1%

#9  Travel and traffic   10.3％

Some big news site, such Tencent or Sohu, also have provided the official account on WeChat, but more than 65% users have interest to them as a result.


4. How often read the information from the official accounts?

#1  Occasionally read   42.3％

#2  Frequently read   24.7%

#3  Canceld the follow   13.4%

#4  Already known   12.5%

#5  Unknown   7.1%



13.4% of the WeChat user already canceled to follow the official accounts, but the next graph explained why they already canceled it.

The first reason of it is that the all of the posts were spam or advertising (56.2%), and the second reason is that the posts were worthless information (53.0%).

Tencent would like to avoid that the official accounts use WeChat as a marketing platform, but it follows that the user side also wouldn't like to read the such posts.


As I explained before, WeChat for iOS was updated to the newest version "5.0", but Android version was also updated the last week. And as I explained before, the display method of the official account was already changed.

   


Anyway, we have to read the changing of the official account policy among with this again, and we may have to rebuild the strategy or activity of marketing on WeChat.


Source => Sootoo research center

The rule was changed. The official account on WeChat was divided into two types, but you have to be careful when you select the type of your official account on them.

Yesterday, the new version of WeChat 5.0 was published on Apple's App Store.

This new version was added some interesting functions including that I explained before, but I would like to explain about these previews the next time.

And today, I would like to explain the details that the rule of the official account on WeChat was changed. I explained before that the official account on WeChat will be divided into the two types, but that was actually divided into the two types as the following picture.

The official account user can choice that will become the "服务号 (Service accounts)" or the "订阅号 (Subscription accounts)". And on the official site of WeChat, it is introduced that "服务号 (Service accounts)" is the better choice for the corporate users as follows.

For example, the service accounts can customize the style of their information, and they can automatically share the information to the Tencent Weibo, and so forth.

When we look this information, we surely feel that the service account is the better choice not only the corporate users, but also for others.

But there are two points to be noted when we change our official account to the service account.
* As a default, the existing official account belongs to the subscription accounts.

1. As I explained before, "Subscription accounts" can post one message in a day, but "Service accounts" can post only one message in a month...

2. There is only one chance that you can choose the type of the official account of WeChat.
* This means that you cannot change the type of the official account after the first choice.

It seems that Tencent would like to induce that the official account user choose the service account, because they wouldn't like the accounts to run the marketing activities on WeChat as I explained.
But I personally think that the best choice is that temporally remain the official account as a subscription account and continue to observe the progress.

If you are an administrator of the official account on WeChat, you have to consider the above limitation, and have to choose the best way for your own.


Source => The official account management tool of WeChat