China’s Tencent, one of the top social networking companies in China, has announced that after a period of increased spending, they will now restructure their business into a more efficient configuration to grow beyond its core business. Tencent is best known for Tencent QQ, an instant messenger not dissimilar to Microsoft’s Live Messenger service, but with enhanced web and mobile capabilities. The new restructure will help the company’s smaller teams gain enough independence to grow faster.
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Facebook Offers Rollout Begins, Delivers Local Deals Direct to Your News Feed (The Verge)
The system allows local businesses to use their Facebook pages to promote themselves direct to their customers, sending freebies and promotions straight to users’ news feeds. Gizmodo Following the huge success of services like Groupon and LivingSocial, it was only a matter of time before Facebook got into the business of deals. AllFacebook If anything, the greater novelty isn’t the rollout of offers, but rather the acquisition of Tagtile. Inside Facebook According to Tagtile’s website, its service “helps local businesses identify and engage their customers to increase revenue.” Read more
Following Shanghai’s recent move ordering Sina Weibo — China’s Twitter equivalent — to have users report their real names to keep better tabs on them, China’s Tencent has announced that they will not ask users of their QQ social network to provide their real names. The announcement came from Chief Executive Pony Ma and is in opposition to many real-name policies being activated across China.
Baidu Inc, China’s top search engine, is now planning to branch out in social media services in China in order to compete with Tencent Holdings – a social media giant in the region.
Asia/Pacific region accounts from more than 70% of the worldwide revenue generated from virtual goods in 2010, according to a new report by In-Stats. Astounding as it may sound, the revenue share of Asia/Pacific has actually gone down during 2010 from being 81% of world virtual goods revenue in 2009.
