China's One App to Rule them All

Forget Facebook or Twitter. With the inadvertent help of Chinese government censorship, an app called WeChat has taken over the lives of Chinese-Americans. It's part family lifeline, part public square, part dating site and it could be a model for the evolution of social networks.    This week on New Tech City, hear what's so special about WeChat as we journey through the hilarious story of a vexed husband trying to understand what makes this app so addictive and pervasive in Chinese-American circles. There's annoying patriotic sausages, smokey hot ladies, and a global tech ethnographer all mixed together. Good times.

Episode 86 of the Note to Self podcast, hosted by WNYC Studios, titled "China's One App to Rule them All" was published on April 9, 2014 and runs 16 minutes.

April 9, 2014 ·16m · Note to Self

Summary

Forget Facebook or Twitter. With the inadvertent help of Chinese government censorship, an app called WeChat has taken over the lives of Chinese-Americans. It's part family lifeline, part public square, part dating site and it could be a model for the evolution of social networks.    This week on New Tech City, hear what's so special about WeChat as we journey through the hilarious story of a vexed husband trying to understand what makes this app so addictive and pervasive in Chinese-American circles. There's annoying patriotic sausages, smokey hot ladies, and a global tech ethnographer all mixed together. Good times.

Episode Description