介绍:
China's top social media platform Wechat has just launched advertising services inside one of its most popular functions.
Ads for Coca Cola, Vivo mobile phones and BMW China are now being inserted into users Moments stream, known as pengyouquan in Chinese.
The Moments stream is one of WeChat's most distinctive features, allowing users to share their thoughts, photos and links to articles and videos with some or all of their friends on the service.
All three advertisements have received millions of comments from Wechat users as the move risks alienating many of the platform's users.
Marketing staff of Wechat confirmed that they use intelligent technology to make sure that different users receive different advertisements. However,they refused to discuss the nature of the technology used.
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(JA) "Together we go to Inner Mongolia" said on weibo.com,
"Previously weibo has become a sea of advertisements, now it's wechat. Moments on Wechat is not a pure place where friends can share their experiences any more."
(QD)"Liu Xingliang" wrote on siilu.com,
"Some users might feel that their privacy has been violated because Wechat sent different ads to different customers based on the data they received from users. But actually this is not new when you look at it with a global perspective. Seven years ago, Facebook started such practices and its operation is way more accurate than that of Wechat. Say a user talked about a certain dress she saw in a TV series on Facebook, Facebook will then insert ads of the exact dress and the link to buy it on the webpage of this user. This Facebook user might feel that she has no privacy at all."
(LK) "Yu Bin" wrote on news.pconline.com.cn,
"Wechat has now more than 600 million users and that's huge. But remember it's always users' experiences that decide the future of social network platforms. We've seen so many social network platforms diminishing because of putting up ads. If Wechat continues to do so, I am afraid it will fall, too."
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(QD) "Wang Jinxiao" wrote on lanjingtmt.com,
"Actually according to my research, Wechat has long been considering putting up ads on Moments. And the reason why they were wavering are two folds: first, ads will damage users' experiences and might cause the loss of users; second, Wechat Moments is very influential because it is based on strong interpersonal relationships, so Wechat wants to keep its commercial value in their own hands."
(JA) "RSTAR Juanzi" said on weibo.com,
"This is the kind of life that you have to live in a modern day. It's ruled by mobile phones, advertisements and unnecessary information. If you don't like it, you can give up using the app. It's completely up to you."
(LK) "J" said on wechat Moments:
"Wechat inserted three different advertisements. It feels good to receive an ad of BMW China instead of Vivo mobile phones or Coca Cola. This means that I am a tuhao, not kidding."
