Society moves online in brave new world(2)

WeChat

WeChat is a new social networking application for cellphone users, which allows people to send texts, images, videos and voice messages, and get in touch with other users within 1 kilometer's distance.

Tencent, the company behind the popular instant messaging service QQ, introduced the application in January 2011 and promoted it to the international market three months later.

Like many applications developed by Tencent, it started as an imitation of the instant voice messenger Kik. WeChat also made knock-offs of other popular apps, such as image-sharing Instagram, random friend-finder Four Square, and personal social network Path.

The number of users keeps increasing and reached 100 million in March 2012. Tencent CEO Pony Ma announced on Sept 17, 2012 that WeChat had 200 million users. There are now more than 300 million.

That's more than half of the 424 million users of Sina Weibo, China's most popular micro-blogging service.

Since August, WeChat has opened public accounts, and many celebrities, media and enterprises started to join the platform, to share information — voice, photo and video messages — with netizens.

Party chief Xi Jinping took a special interest in WeChat, when he visited Tencent's headquarters in Guangdong province in December. He encouraged the company to keep up its development and make a contribution to bringing China's Internet industry to the world, according to First Financial Daily.

Virtual celebrities

In 2011, netizens were crazy about the Zen master cat Shironeko and the dog Shunsuke from Japan, both were well-known for being cute. One year later, however, it seems it's much easier to become famous online, dead or alive.

Yuanfang from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) became the new Internet favorite in October.

In the TV series Amazing Detective Di Renjie, Di, the Chinese version of Sherlock Holmes, often asks his Watson-like assistant Li Yuanfang for advice, "Yuanfang, what do you think of it?" The sentence soon became popular cyberslang. Chinese netizens have taken to using the phrase in everyday discussion.

Playing basketball, holding a machine gun and riding a motorcycle, Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu (712-770) is the busiest literary celebrity of the year. Netizens are obsessed with superimposing his likeness onto photos in high school textbooks.

Online charity

Sina Weibo launched its charity platform on Feb 17, allowing nearly 1 million of its verified users to initiate charity programs. More than 16 million yuan was collected for about 2,000 programs.

Of the 6,000 people who have received help, Lu Chao is probably the most famous.

Lu, 23, whose online name is "Lu Ruoqing", was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012 and had been updating her Sina Weibo micro blog about her treatment. She gave up stem cell transplantation because of the expected 400,000 yuan cost.

Many netizens supported and encouraged her after an online celebrity reposted her micro blog, calling for help from others in mid-May. Some doubted her identity, but the rumors were soon dismissed.

The well-known investor Xue Manzi started a program on Sina Weibo's charity platform, aimed at raising 1 million yuan for Lu, together with China Youth Development Foundation, a public foundation in Beijing.

The target was reached within three days. After successful stem cell transplant surgery in Beijing in July, Lu is recovering and often helps others with similar experiences, by reposting their micro blogs.

"Thanks to micro blogs, everyone can contribute to charity by donating several yuan or reposting. Many a little make a mickle, so that even one millon yuan can be raised in a day," Xue wrote in his micro blog.