WeChat

(Chinese: 微信; literally: “micro-message”) is a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. It was first released in 2011, and by 2018 it was one of the world’s largest standalone mobile apps by monthly active users, with over 1 billion monthly active users and 902 million daily active users. Described as one of the world’s most powerful apps by Forbes, it is also known as China’s “app for everything” and a “super app” because of its wide range of functions and platforms. In addition to China, it is also the most popular messaging app in Bhutan.  WeChat has been identified as one of the few potential competitors to Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

QQ

Another Tencent brainchild, QQ is an instant messaging software service.  It also offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat software. It is the world’s 7th most visited website.

TIKTOK

TikTok, also known as Douyin in China, is a media app for creating and sharing 15 second videos. Owned by ByteDance, the media app was launched as Douyin in China in September 2016 and introduced to the overseas market as TikTok one year later. It is a leading short video platform in Asia, United States, and other parts of the world. In 2018, the application gained popularity and became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018.

TikTok is available in over 150 markets, 75 languages and has over 500,000,000 active users.

REDDIT

Reddit is a US social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called “subreddits”, which cover a variety of topics including news, science, movies, video games, music, books, fitness, food, and image-sharing. Submissions with more up-votes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough votes, ultimately on the site’s front page. Despite strict rules prohibiting harassment, Reddit’s administrators spend considerable resources on moderating the site.

As of February 2018, Reddit had 542 million monthly visitors 330 million unique users, ranking as the #3 most visited website in U.S. and #6 in the world, with 57.4% of its user base coming from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 7.5% and Canada at 6.3%. Across 2018, Reddit saw 153 million submissions, 1.2 billion comments, and 27 billion upvotes from its users.

Reddit was founded by University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. Condé Nast Publications acquired the site in October 2006. Reddit became a subsidiary of Condé Nast’s parent company, Advance Publications, in September 2011. As of August 2012, Reddit operated as an independent entity, although Advance was its largest shareholder.[7] Reddit is based in San Francisco, California. In October 2014, Reddit raised $50 million in a funding round led by Sam Altman and including investors Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Snoop Dogg, and Jared Leto. Their investment valued the company at $500 million then. In July 2017, Reddit raised $200 million for a $1.8 billion valuation, with Advance Publications remaining the majority stakeholder.

DOUBAN

Douban launched on March 6, 2005.  It is a Chinese social networking service website allowing registered users to record information and create content related to film, books, music, recent events and activities in Chinese cities. It could be seen as one of the most influential web 2.0* websites in China. Douban also owns an internet radio station, which ranked No.1 in iOS App Store in 2012. Douban was formerly open to both registered and unregistered users. For registered users, the site recommends potentially interesting books, movies, and music to them in addition to serving as a social network website such as WeChat, Weibo and record keeper; for unregistered users, the site is a place to find ratings and reviews of said media.

As of January 2019, Douban had 320 million registered users.

*the second stage of development of the World Wide Web, characterized especially by the change from static web pages to dynamic or user-generated content and the growth of social media