Tencent Releases New Social App You Ji

Recently, Tencent has officially launched an app called “You Ji”, with the slogan “record your real life”. Users can browse through friends’ daily posts in the app, and can also record and share what’s happening in their own lives.

Different from the Instagram style of Weibo’s new social app Oasis, the product combines the functions of Weibo with a unique “daily topics” feature, allowing users to consume content in various verticals. Including the newly launched “You Ji”, Tencent has now created four different types of social apps, namely virtual character socializing, short video socializing, dating and social networking.

2019 is indeed the year of social apps. According to Qimai Data’s research on the top 500 social apps, from 2008 to 2015, a total of 153 social apps were launched. Compare that to 2018, when a total of 159 social apps were born. In the first two months of 2019, 53 new social apps were added to the App Store, indicating an explosive growth of social apps in 2019.

SEE ALSO: Chinese Face-Swap Platform ZAO Apologizes After Privacy Backlash

In the spring of this year, a series of new apps including Bullet Messenger, MT(Toilet) got people’s attention for a short period of time. Then Momo‘s ZAO (face-swap app) and Weibo’s Oasis (Instagram style app) aroused heated discussions online. However, none really succeeded in terms of user stickiness. Much of the push to introduce new social apps is motivated by a desire to capture the growing Generation Z segment, the youngest demographic comprised of mostly teens.