Tencent QQ : GAMING EXPRESS

Tencent QQ

Tencent QQ , also known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service developed by the Chinese company Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd.. QQ also offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat software. The logo of the software is a penguin wearing a red scarf. It is the world's 8th most visited website, according to Alexa.

As of April 2014, over 200 million simultaneous online QQ users were recorded.  At the end of June 2016, there were 899 million active QQ accounts.

Developer(s)	Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd.
Initial release	February 1999; 19 years ago
Stable release	9.0.4 (Microsoft Windows) / June 6, 2018; 2 months ago
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Laotian
Type	Instant messaging

 

History

Tencent QQ was first released in China in February 1999 under the name of OICQ. After the threat of a trademark infringement lawsuit by the AOL-owned ICQ, the product's name was changed to QQ. The software inherited existing functions from ICQ, and additional features such as software skins, people's images, and emoticons QQ was first released as a "network paging" real-time communications service. Other features were later added, such as chatrooms, games, personal avatars, online storage, and Internet dating services.

The official client runs on Microsoft Windows and a beta public version was launched for Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or newer. Formerly, two web versions, WebQQ and WebQQ Mini, which made use of Ajax, were available. Development, support, and availability of WebQQ Mini, however, has since been discontinued. On 31 July 2008, Tencent released an official client for Linux, but this has not been made compatible with the Windows version and it is not capable of voice chat.

In response to competition with other instant messengers, such as Windows Live Messenger, Tencent released Tencent Messenger, which is aimed at businesses.

Tencent QQ holds the Guinness World Record for the highest number of simultaneous online users on an instant messaging program with 210,212,085 users online on July 3, 2014.

Membership

In 2002, Tencent stopped its free membership registration, requiring all new members to pay a fee. In 2003, however, this decision was reversed due to pressure from other instant messaging services such as Windows Live Messenger and Sina UC. Tencent currently offers a premium membership scheme, where premium members enjoy features such as QQ mobile, ringtone downloads, and SMS sending/receiving. In addition, Tencent offers "Diamond" level memberships. Currently, there are seven diamond schemes available:

• Red for the QQ Show service which features some superficial abilities such as having a colored account name.
• Yellow to obtain extra storage and decorations in Qzone—a blog service.
• Blue to obtain special abilities in the game-plays of QQ games.
• Purple for obtaining special abilities in games including QQ Speed, QQ Nana, and QQ Tang
• Pink for having different boosts in the pet-raising game called QQ Pet.
• Green for using QQ music—a service for users to stream music online.
• VIP for having extra features in the chat client such as removing advertisements
• Black for gaining benefits related to DNF (Dungeon & Fighter), a multiplayer PC beat 'em up video game.

QQ International

·       Windows

In 2009, QQ began to expand its services internationally with its QQ International client for Windows distributed through a dedicated English-language portal.

QQ International offers non-Mandarin speakers the opportunity to use most of the features of its Chinese counterpart to get in touch with other QQ users via chat, VoIP, and video calls, and it provides a non-Mandarin interface to access Qzone, Tencent's social network. The client supports English, French, Spanish, German, Korean, Japanese and Traditional Chinese.

One of the main features of QQ International is the optional and automatic machine translation in all chats.

·       Android

An Android version of QQ International was released on September 2013. The client's interface is in English, French, Spanish, German, Korean, Japanese and Traditional Chinese. In addition to text messaging, users can send each other images, videos, and audio media messages. Moreover, users can share multimedia content with all contacts through the client's Qzone interface.

The live translation feature is available for all incoming messages and supports up to 18 languages.

·       IOS

QQ International for iPhone and iOS devices was released at the end of 2013, fully equivalent to its Android counterpart.

Partnerships

In India, Tencent has partnered with ibibo to bring services such as chat, mail and game to the developing Indian internet sphere.

In Vietnam, Tencent has struck a deal with VinaGame to bring the QQ Casual Gaming portal as well as the QQ Messenger as an addition to the already thriving Vietnamese gaming communities.

In the United States, Tencent has partnered with AOL to bring QQ Games as a contender in the US social gaming market. Launched in 2007, QQ Games came bundled with the AIM installer, and competed with AOL's own games.com to provide a gaming experience for the AIM user base.

Web QQ

Tencent launched its web-based QQ formally on 15 September 2009, the latest version of which being 3.0. Rather than solely a web-based IM, WebQQ 3.0 functions more like its own operating system, with a desktop in which web applications can be added

Social network website

In 2009, Tencent launched Xiaoyou (校友, 'schoolmate'), its first social network website. In mid-2010, Tencent changed direction and replaced Xiaoyou with Pengyou (朋友, 'friends'), trying to establish a more widespread network, to which extant QQ users could be easily redirected, hence giving Pengyou a major advantage over its competitors. Tencent's social network Qzone is linked to in the International and native versions of QQ.

Merchandise

Tencent has taken advantage of the popularity of the QQ brand and has set up many Q-Gen stores selling QQ branded merchandise such as bags, watches, clothing as well as toy penguins.