If you hadn't see the company that owns the Chinese official social network "Wechat" overtook the market capitalisation of Facebook.
One remarkable difference is that the Wechat revenue is only 18% of total revenue, where as facebook's is 98%.
Let's put advertising to one side and think about innovation in apps and social?
1. Uber, this app has revolutionised, the way we get taxis. This was available on Wechat 5 years ago.
2. Applepay, just about rolled out in the states, this was available on Wechat 5 years ago too.
So where is the innovation?
Wechat is built differently than American social networks. Wechat is build round a users credit card, while facebook is all about advertising.
Brands also build their websites in WeChat. In fact, most brands in China get twice as many hits on their WeChat website as does the internet version.
So where does this lead innovation? For facebook to grow, they have to get you convince you to spend more on ads and / or radically redesign the platform. Maybe both.
But we only need to look at WeChat to see the direction of travel and it's going to be more and more "walled gardens".
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http://www.social-experts.net/blog/
The Chinese technology giant Tencent recently overtook US rival Facebook to become the world’s most valuable social network company, with a market capitalisation of US$540 billion. Yet it is sitting on an advertising goldmine. Just 18% of its total revenue in the 2016 fiscal year came from online advertising. Compare this with Facebook’s model: advertising makes up 98% of its total revenue. So why hasn’t Tencent yet made the most of its advertising potential?
