Sogou started to provide the WeChat search service. It supports the account name search and the keyword search.

The third largest search engine provider in China 'Sogou' started to provide WeChat search service.

This search service supports the account name search and the keyword search.

  

About the account name search, it can search by the account name (displayed name on WeChat) and the account code. And if you click the displayed account name, then it will be displayed the posting history.

Last time, I explained that WeChat has not prepared the method of spreading information in the platform to the official accounts. But this search service will be useful for the official account on WeChat, because it will be able to be found by users more easily than now. It will be useful for users too, because it can help users to find the information easily what users want.

Sogou have provided the search engine since 2004 as a subsidiary of Sohu. But Tencent invested 448 million USD last September, and Tencent now has 36.5% stock of Sogou. They started to grope for the collaboration from that time, and this search service is surely the one of their result.

As I mentioned above, Sogou is the third largest search engine provider in China. And according to the recent report by CNZZ, their market share is 12.44% as of May 2014.

The difference with the two largest companies(Baidu and 360) is still big, but I think that this service can help to reduce that difference. Because WeChat will not provide such search result to that two largest companies.

Let's keep watching the future situation of this.

Source => WeChat search service by Sogou

WeChat strengthened the regulation of the marketing activities for the official account, and also published the regulations of the penalty.

Recently Tencent announced that they set a limit of the friend number of WeChat, and its number was 5000 users at most. And this time, they also published the regulations of the penalty for the official account on WeChat. According to them, the official accounts who force and recommend to their followers are rapidly increasing. So they decided to discipline to such heinous official accounts as follows.

According to this regulation, in case that the official account will be alerted the first time, then that official account will be stopped their activity during 7 days. And if the official account will be alerted 4 times, then the official account will be frozen eternally.

Actually, Tencent have expressed that WeChat is not the marketing platform for a long time, and they have not prepared the method of spreading information in the platform to the official accounts. But on the other hand, the normal accounts can post the information to 'Moments', and it's comparatively easy to get a lot of friends by using the function of 'People Nearby' or 'Shake'. So some official accounts use the normal accounts to spread their information on 'Moments'.

Tencent recognized that the some of such official accounts are heinous accounts, so they prepared this regulation. At this stage, we don't know how strict this regulation is, but it's better that official account of WeChat don't use the words such as 'recommend forwarding this information to Moments' or related message.


Source=> The official page of WeChat for the official accounts