China Tech Talk

This week saw a multitude of messaging app announcements. First was WeChat's Open Class PRO featuring a four-hour speech from Allen Zhang. Then, on the same day, Bytedance announced their own messaging app (Duoshan 多闪), what appears to be a clone of Snapchat, and Bullet Messenger announced their upgrade and rebrand to Liaotianbao (聊天宝). All three events, and the recent update to WeChat 7.0, raise interesting questions about the messaging market, WeChat's primacy, and the ascendancy of Bytedance.

This week, Matt and John take a look at the stories and trends of 2018, including gaming restrictions, Tencent's restructuring, the delivery and coffee wars, WeChat mini programs, and Bullet Messenger

This week, Matt and John take a look at the stories and trends of 2018, including ZTE/Huawei, AI in China, Bytedance, blockchain, and the death of bike rentals. This is the first of two parts.

This week, John and Matt talk with Shai Oster, Asia bureau chief for The Information, about the rash of Chinese IPOs in a down market, looking at Tencent Music, Xiaomi, Pinduoduo, Meituan Dianping. We also talk about the possibilities for Bytedance and Ant Financial IPOs in 2019. Links China Tech Talk 49: The Xiaomi IPO with The Information’s Shai Oster What China’s history of overseas tech IPOs says about the current wave TechNode IPO coverage Sign up for TechNode newsletters Subscribe to The Information Guest Shai Oster - The Information author page, @beijingscribe  Hosts John Artman, @knowsnothing, TechNode Matthew Brennan, @mbrennanchina ChinaChannel Podcast information iTunes RSS feed China Tech Talk.com Music: "Theme from Penguins on Parade" by Lee Rosevere, Music for Podcasts 3

Bytedance, formerly known as Jinri Toutiao, is on deck for discussion this week. Beginning from pure textual content and recommendation, Bytedance has seemingly found the key to human attention. While this makes for a great product, and compelling business, whether they can make it in the US market is still unclear.

China Tech Investors is the latest addition to the TechNode podcast network. Each week, the hosts look at publicly listed Chinese companies and have an interview with an expert to talk about companies and issues affecting the markets.

This week they talk G20 and China-US tensions with Chris Balding. Search in iTunes or your favorite podcast app for "China Tech Investor" to subscribe.

Ted Hopkins, Senior Director of Walmart Ecommerce, joins us to talk about mini programs, eliminating lines in stores, and the future of retail in China.

Alvin Wang Graylin joins us this week from the sidelines of TechCrunch Shenzhen to talk about the broader potential of VR and the specific outlook for VR in China.

Wang Boyuan is back! This time we're talking about Mafengwo and the curious case of extremely unreliable numbers in China. Not only Mafengwo, but also Alibaba, JD.com, and Dianping are mentioned in the discussion.

Guest

Wang Boyuan – @thisboyuan

Hosts

John Artman, @knowsnothing

Matthew Brennan, @mbrennanchina

Kai-Fu Lee joins us this week to talk about his new book, AI Superpowers, and the distinct advantages and differences between the US and China in this increasingly important technology.