{"text":[[{"start":14.57,"text":"Western social media companies have long dreamt of creating an everything app that can operate on the same scale as WeChat. "},{"start":20.849,"text":"In China, online activities are grouped in one place - shopping, payments, subscriptions, messaging and entertainment. "},{"start":28.317,"text":"Parent company Tencent takes a cut of financial transactions. "},{"start":31.997,"text":"WeChat is less reliant on advertising revenue than US platforms. "}],[{"start":36.99,"text":"Elon Musk sees potential. "},{"start":39.407000000000004,"text":"When he agreed to buy Twitter he told employees there was an opportunity to build a WeChat equivalent outside China. "},{"start":45.199,"text":"His first tweet since agreeing to honour the deal stated that it was an accelerant to creating “X, the everything app. ”"}],[{"start":51.47,"text":"If Musk could turn Twitter into a super app he would radically transform its business. "},{"start":56.299,"text":"WeChat revenues, included in Tencent’s “Fintech and Business Services” were Rmb42.2bn ($5.9bn) in the last quarter — five times the size of Twitter’s. "}],[{"start":68.53999999999999,"text":"To get there, however, Musk would need more sign-ups. "},{"start":72.25699999999999,"text":"WeChat has over 1.3bn monthly users. "},{"start":75.67399999999999,"text":"Twitter has 238mn monetisable daily active users (a metric it made up). "},{"start":81.00399999999999,"text":"One option might be to push Twitter’s private messaging service. "},{"start":84.58399999999999,"text":"Alternatively, Musk could launch a new app. "},{"start":87.36399999999999,"text":"Tencent had messaging service QQ before creating WeChat as a mobile messaging app that cannibalised existing users. "}],[{"start":95,"text":"Yet the circumstances that allowed WeChat to grow are impossible to replicate in the US. "},{"start":100.242,"text":"WeChat was launched in 2011 and expanded with smartphone adoption. "},{"start":104.484,"text":"In China, using one app to access other services via mini-apps makes sense. "},{"start":109.214,"text":"Google’s app store, for example, is not available in the country. "},{"start":113.232,"text":"In the US, Apple and Google have a duopoly over app access. "},{"start":117.187,"text":"To make the service useful, Twitter would need to build partnerships with companies like ride-hailing company Uber and add them to Twitter’s app. "},{"start":123.94200000000001,"text":"But these companies already have standalone apps and will not welcome Twitter acting as gatekeeper. "},{"start":128.847,"text":"Snap’s attempt to add mini-apps has been put on hold. "}],[{"start":132.98,"text":"Musk’s background in online banking may give him an advantage in adding payments to social media, though Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey runs payments platform Block and has not managed to meld the two. "},{"start":143.23399999999998,"text":"In a crowded market under intense regulatory scrutiny, Twitter’s odds of becoming a one-stop shop app are not promising. "}],[{"start":149.56,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/85566-1665026170.mp3"}