You have likely noticed the ubiquitous QQ alert tone. It’s that strident little beeping shuffle you hear everywhere there are Chinese people glued to their phones or laptops in a concerted effort to pass the time, a series of six shrill bleeps. Yes, that one. That is QQ, China’s largest social networking and instant messaging platform, and it is one of the keys to understanding the shape of the Internet in China today.

The numbers revolving around QQ are staggering. According to QQ’s real-time statistics readout, the all-time concurrent user peak was over 118 million individual users. By comparison, Skype’s peak in January this year registered at only 22 million. Qzone, QQ’s microblogging service, registered an average of 200 million unique log-ins per month by early last year, while Facebook’s highest monthly log-in at the time trailed at 175 million. While it is tempting to explain away the numbers in terms of China’s massive population, it is important to remember that just last year only around 27% of Chinese citizens even owned computers, and only 23% have internet access at home. QQ is clearly a social media powerhouse to watch. With that in mind, here are some important things to know about QQ.

1. QQ is virtually synonymous with online life in China.

Although QQ functions primarily as an inexpensive and instantaneous communications alternative to phone calls and e-mail, its scope encompasses much more than that. QQ is a mega-amalgamation of chat, microblogging, e-mail, viral games, news, personal avatars, dating, data storage, community, and music, and even has its own virtual currency that can be exchanged for the virtual goods and services listed above. It has, in other words, all the lifestyle and entertainment essentials that the average Chinese netizen wants from the internet, and is the only SNS platform to offer such an expansive range. In addition to such scope, QQ is exceedingly accessible in terms of cultural usability. Virtually anybody feels comfortable with QQ, from farmer to CEO. Part of this accessibility comes from QQ’s mobile phone and SMS services, which are available even to people without personal computers, at a price. Which leads us to the fact that…

1. QQ turns a profit; a big one.

Social networking platforms actually have quite a bit of trouble bringing in cash. Tencent Inc., QQ’s parent company, however, took in about $1 billion in revenue in 2008. In comparison, that year MySpace brought in around $800 million and Facebook only $300 million, mostly through online advertising. Why is QQ so immensely profitable? The majority of its income derives from its popular “value-added services,” such as SMS, avatars, games, and QQ Love, its dating service.  The value-added model has failed with most other SNS platforms, forcing Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter to rely heavily on advertising revenue, but QQ’s financial success has proved that people will pay for social networking. How exactly Tencent has fruitfully monetized social networking in China is a complicated topic for another article, but chances are all its smartest competitors are paying close attention to Tencent at the moment. QQ, then, has potential implications for SNS platforms globally. It is fairly clear that…

1. QQ has some international ambitions, but a long way to go.

QQ International Beta3, which is available in English, French and Japanese, is primarily a translated version of the basic chat function with a few tailored features, such as links to City Weekend, eChinacities and Ctrip. For now, the target user is clearly the expat. Marc Violo, the director of development of QQ International, said in an interview with Them that, “We’re not looking at expanding QQ International outside of China in the short or medium term. We have only one goal which is to be present in every foreign mind living or travelling in China.”  However, QQ International’s campaign to recruit “QQ Cultural Ambassadors” among the expat community, particularly among students via presentations and seminars at Shanghai’s Fudan and Jiaotong Universities indicates the intent for a much more globalised long-term strategy.

The glaring question is whether or not foreigners will actually use QQ. There are those who accuse QQ of being too intrusive for a foreign market that places a high value on privacy, which Tencent and QQ culture have tended to neglect. There are also aesthetic problems; like most Chinese websites, QQ favors the loud, flashing graphics and cluttered pages that come across to the foreign eye as slapdash and poorly-designed. Even the winking penguin mascot strikes some foreigners as juvenile or just plain weird rather than cute and friendly.

While QQ has thus far failed to make itself a communication tool for non-Chinese speakers, it is a powerful player in Chinese Internet culture that merits close observation by anyone interested in the shape of the Internet in mainland China.

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