China-Over 500,000 TikTok users have recently joined the Chinese social media app RedNote to protest what they see as an impending ban on the short video app in the US. This has brought RedNote a lot of attention.
In China, the platform is called “Xiaohongshu” and is a famous lifestyle app where people share their stories and give advice.
A few things about the app are shown below:
WHAT DOES THIS APP DO?
RedNote is often thought of as Instagram that has been tweaked to work better in China. “Little Red Book” is what its Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, means in English. This word usually refers to a collection of quotes by Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
A lot of people in China use it to find tips these days, and the most-searched topics on the app are about food, fashion, travel, and beauty. In China, most of its users are young women.
Its interface is different from TikTok or Instagram because it shows more than one post at the same time, whether they are videos, pictures, or longer texts.
It lets users have conversations, share their posts, call each other, and buy things. The site has recently been putting a lot of effort into selling livestreams.
Chinese sources say that as of 2023, it had more than 300 million monthly active users.
Who owns the Red Note?
Miranda Qu, who is president of the app now, and Charlwin Mao, who is CEO, helped to start it in Shanghai in 2013. At first, they called the app “Hong Kong Shopping Guide” and made it for Chinese tourists who wanted to find shopping tips outside of China.
RedNote is thought to be a possible IPO option. Big Chinese tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent own shares, as well as Singapore’s state backer Temasek and venture capital firms GSR Ventures, DST Global, and GGV Capital.
The Hurun rich list in China says that Mao is worth about 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion), and Qu is worth 12 billion yuan.
DOES IT HAVE GOALS FOR THE WORLD?
People from China mostly use the app. Users can change the language of the app, but most of the material so far has been in Mandarin.
RedNote seems to be caught off guard by the sudden rise in TikTok users. Two people who know the company well said that they were working hard to find ways to filter English-language material and make tools for translating between English and Chinese.
RedNote doesn’t keep separate versions of its app for use in different countries. Instead, it only updates one version. Tencent’s WeChat app, on the other hand, has versions for both inside and outside of China. ByteDance also has a version of TikTok for mainland China called Douyin, in part to follow rules set by the Chinese government for control.
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People who work for the company say that executives are excited about the sudden surge in interest because they see it as a possible way to reach the same level of global fame as TikTok. RedNote did not answer when asked for a response.
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