Is QQ obsolete?

[abcdefg]

My experience in Kunming is that QQ is pretty much dead. The friends with whose accounts I am connected seldom sign in any more. My messages go unanswered. They all use 微信 instead.

 

The exception is a few friends who also use QQ for business purposes. They tend to maintain their sites better.

 

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Edited to fix the spelling per Skylee's tip.

Edited May 15, 2014 at 06:28 AM by abcdefg

[skylee]

Re # 21, it is 微信, not 威信.

[fabiothebest]

From what I see, wechat became more popular but there are still people who use QQ and as someone said before, QQ has a solid desktop version so it's used on the pc, instead wechat is for mobile phones. They are developed by the same company (Tencent) and by using an app you can also send and receive messages using the account of the other app. They are linked. QQ has been used for longer time and it's mainly used by Chinese people, even if when they released QQ International with an English interface, more foreigners started using it, but just those interested in China, Chinese language or having Chinese friends. Instead Wechat became popular also in other countries. I'm from Italy and I started using wechat when it wasn't famous yet outside of China, anyway after some time it started being used also in other countries. In Italy, the most used messaging app is Whatsapp, but after that there is immediately Wechat. Chinese people may find it strange, but Italians now use wechat among their Italian friends and most of people don't have Chinese friends. It became famous 1) because it is a good app (and in my opinion it has more feautures than whatsapp, even if many people didn't believe me at first XD), 2) because they are advertising the app even on tv in Italy.

[langxia]

I Still use QQ but mostly to send files, or when the connection on Wechat is to slow to videochat, somehow QQ is then still much more stable. But other than that you now exchange wechat id instead of qq, even though there are still friends out there that only use qq and not wechat.

[Meng Lelan]

Ok. Well I was invited to join a QQ group by and for those involved in education and rehab of the blind in China. They advised me to sign up for a account on the qq official site not the international version. I don't know how those two could be different? Also, does WeChat have groups?

[fabiothebest]

With QQ International you can talk to people who signed up for the Chinese version too. I think there aren't limitations for groups, based on the type of the account either.

About wechat, yes also wechat has groups, although they aren't listed in a directory but they are created privately by people and shared individually, like it happens with whatsapp. If someone creates a group and add you to the group you can join it, though there isn't an official listing of all the groups on the official website. Everyone is free to advertise his/her own group on his/her personal website though.