Day 15: Wechat/Wexin

Over here in China, there was Weibo. Kinda like Facebook-slash-Twitter, but more w/ the public as opposed to w/ friends. It's pretty lame: i suspect that 96% of my 168 "friends" are computer generated and propagated nobodies hoping for me to click on their profiles for some unknown reason.

It was most useful when actual news happened, as it got word out fast. Ex) a train fell off the tracks. A passenger posted on Weibo as it got help faster than calling 911.

Anyhow, pretty much everyone was using Weibo to keep the world updated on their lives.

Then Weixin (WeChat) came in, but only for mobile phone devices. And in a shockingly short time took over Weibo. Nobody asks for yr Weibo contact anymore.

Weixin really did carve out a niche for chatting/group chatting. My running group's Weixin group is pretty active.

Even my brother uses it, bizarrely enough.

I don't use it for updates about my life, or even read other people's much though. But people who do use it, can be obsessive. ie) 14:38: "Look, the baby's head is just starting to come out!"  14:42: "It's still in there, but I think I saw it's ear a second ago...." 14:43: "Wife is still screaming a lot."

Do people in the west use WeChat? Sometimes sending an audio msg is easier than typing. Just sayin'.