Tencent QQ
 | |
| Developer(s) | Tencent Holdings Limited |
|---|---|
| Stable release | See current releases |
| Preview release | See preview releases |
| Operating system | Android, iOS, Linux, OS X, Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile/CE, Symbian, Java ME, Web App |
| Available in | Chinese, English, French, Japanese |
| Type | Instant messaging |
| License | Proprietary (adware) |
| Alexa rank |
 7 (February 2014)[1] |
| Website |
www.qq.com Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese International |
Tencent QQ, popularly known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service developed by Tencent Holdings Limited. QQ also offers a variety of services, including online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, and group and voice chat.
As of 20 March 2013, there are 798.2 million active QQ accounts, with a peak of 176.4 million simultaneous online QQ users.[2]
Current releases
Stable
| QQ Official version 2012[3] | October 22, 2012 | Windows XP, Vista, 7 |
| QQ 3.0[4] | September 29, 2013 | Mac OS X Snow Leopard |
| QQ International 1.6[5] | December 6, 2012 | Windows XP, Vista, 7 |
| QQ International for Android [6] | September 26, 2013 | Android phones |
| QQ2011 1.3[7] | August 30, 2011 | iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) |
| QQ 2.1[8] | August 23, 2011 | iOS (iPad native) |
| QQ for Pad 1.6[9] | Unknown | Android tablets |
| WebQQ 3.0[10] | May 5, 2011 | N/A |
Preview
| Version | Release date | Operating system |
|---|---|---|
| QQ2013 Beta2 (Simplified Chinese)[11] | January 22, 2013 | Windows Vista, 7 |
| QQ2012 beta (Traditional Chinese)[12] | March 28, 2012 | Windows XP, Vista, 7 |
| QQ Concept beta 3[13] | July 22, 2010 | Windows 7 |
| QQ 1.0 beta 1[14] | January 4, 2009 | Linux |
| QQ2011 beta 3 build 0115[15] | August 10, 2011 | Android phones |
| Tencent Messenger beta 3.3[16] | April 28, 2011 | Windows Vista, 7 |
History
Tencent QQ was first released in February 1999 under the name of OICQ ("Open ICQ", a reference to the early IM service ICQ).[17][18][19][20]
After the threat of a trademark infringement lawsuit by the AOL-owned ICQ, the product's name was changed to QQ[18][19][20] (with "Q" and "QQ" often used in Chinese to stand for the English word "cute").[17][20] The software inherited existing functions from ICQ, with additional features such as software skins, people's images, and motions.[citation needed] QQ was first released as a "network paging" real-time communications service. Other, mainly free features were later added, such as chatrooms, games, personal avatars (similar to "Meego" in MSN), 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.[21] Formerly, two web versions, WebQQ (full version) and WebQQ Mini (Lite version), which made use of Ajax, were available.[22][23] Development, support, and availability of WebQQ Mini, however, have since been discontinued. On 31 July 2008, Tencent released an official client for Linux,[24] but this has not since been kept in step with the Windows version and it is not capable of voice chat.
In response to competition with Windows Live Messenger, Tencent released Tencent Messenger, which is for business people. It also provides, in limited form, features that are only available to premium members in normal QQ.
A beta version of QQ is currently available for Symbian S60 3rd Edition.[25]
Membership
In 2002, Tencent stopped its free membership registration, requiring all new members to pay a fee, but in 2003, 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, which offers features such as QQ mobile, ringtone downloads, and SMS sending/receiving. In addition, Tencent offers "Diamond" level memberships. Currently, there are seven diamond services available:
- Red, for the QQ Show service which features the ability to make an avatar for yourself.
- Yellow, for the Qzone service which is similar to a blog.
- Blue, which is for QQ games.
- Purple, which is shared between four Tencent games, QQNana, a Korean dancing game, QQTang, an action game, extremely similar to crazy arcade and Pacman and QQSpeed, a car race game, and R2beat, a roller skating rhythm racing game.
- Pink, for QQ pet, a small desktop game about raising a pet. So far there are 3 generations of pets. Penguin, Pig, and Bear (beta testing).
- Greenish, for QQ music, which is a software for listening to music directly from the Tencent server. Requiring no pre-download, though sometimes consuming a lot of disk space due to caching.
- VIP, for chatting, beta testing, removing advertising, and several additional features
- Black, for benefits related to DNF (Dungeon & Fighter), a multiplayer PC beat 'em up video game.[26]
Q coin
The Q coin is a virtual money used by QQ users to "purchase" QQ related items for their avatar and blog. Q coins are obtained either by purchase, one coin for one RMB, or for using the mobile phone service. Due to the popularity of QQ among young Chinese, Q coins are now accepted by gradually more and more online stores and gaming sites in exchange for "real" merchandise such as small gifts, and raised the concern of replacing (and thus "inflating") real currency in these transactions. The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, says it is investigating the possibility of cracking down on Q coin, due to people using Q coins in exchange for real world goods.[27] Tencent claims the Q coin was merely a regular commodity, and thus not a currency.[28]
Modifications
Coral QQ, a modification of Tencent QQ, is another add on. While Tencent charges for some services and displays advertisement, Coral QQ provides free access to some of the services and blocks Tencent's advertisements. In 2006, Tencent filed a copyright lawsuit against Chen Shoufu (aka Soff), the author of Coral QQ, whose redistributing modified Tencent QQ was ruled illegal. Chen then published his modification as a separate add on. On 16 August 2007, Chen was detained again for allegedly making profits off of his ad-blocking add on.[29] His case is pending at Shenzhen Nanshan district court.[citation needed]
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.[30]
QQ International offers non-Mandarin speakers the opportunity to use all the features of its Chinese counterpart to get in touch with other QQ users via chat and videocalls, and it provides a non-Mandarin interface to access Qzone, Tencent's social network. The client supports English, French, Spanish, German, Korean, Japanese and Classic Chinese. A wealth of third-party applications is bundled with QQ International and it is mainly aimed at making cross-cultural communications in and out of China more convenient.
One of the main features of QQ International is the optional and automatic machine translation of all chats.
Android
An Android version of QQ International was released in September 2013.[31] The client's interface is in English, French, Spanish, German, Korean, Japanese and Classic Chinese. In addition to text messaging, users can send each other images, video, 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 / iPhone
QQ International for iPhone and iOS devices was released at the end of 2013,[32] fully equivalent to its Android counterpart.
Partnerships
In India, Tencent has partnered with ibibo[33] to bring such services as chat, mail and game to the developing Indian internet sphere.
In Vietnam, Tencent has struck a deal with VinaGame[34] 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,[35] QQ Games comes bundled with the AIM installer, and competes 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.com (朋友, 'friends'), trying to establish a more widespread network, to which extant QQ users could be easily redirected, hence giving Pengyou.com a major advantage over its competitors. Open Web QQ at http://web.qq.com[36]
Open source and cross-platform clients
Using reverse engineering, open source communities have come to understand the QQ protocol better and have attempted to implement client core libraries compatible with more user-friendly clients, free of advertisements. Most of these clients are cross-platform, so they are usable on operating systems which the official client does not support. However, these implementations had only a subset of the functions of the official client and therefore were more limited in features. Furthermore, QQ's parent company, Tencent, has over successive versions modified the QQ protocol to the extent that it can no longer be supported by most, and perhaps any, of the third-party implementations that were successful in the past (some of which are listed below). As of 2009, none of the developers of third-party clients have publicized any plans to restore QQ support.
- Pidgin, an open source cross-platform multiprotocol client, with third-party plugin
- Adium, an open source OS X client, with third-party plugin built on top of libqq-pidgin
- Kopete, an open source multiprotocol client designed for KDE
- Note: Kopete, old versions of Pidgin, and any other client whose QQ support is based on libpurple no longer supports QQ as of May 2011[37]
- Miranda IM, an open source multiprotocol client, designed for Microsoft Windows, with MirandaQQ2[38] plugin.
- Eva
- There also used to be several public Jabber transports available. Most of them stopped working due to frequent protocol changes made by Tencent. A service available at Open-QQ.tk, which uses the third-party plugin for Pidgin seems to be the only one working left.
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.
Related characteristics
- The accounts of QQ are all combined with numbers, the account numbers provided for the registered users are selected randomly by the system user registration. In 1995, the registered QQ accounts had only 5 digits, while currently the digital numbers used for QQ accounts has reached 12. The first QQ number is held by Ma Huateng and his account number is 10001.
- The membership of a QQ account normally lasts for one month. When this membership is overdue and does not renewals, such membership would be resumed.
- The rule of calculating the age of QQ is that login fully 2 hours within a day would be seen as one real day. Thus login QQ for around 700 hours would make the age of QQ grow 1 year older. From the QQ version 2012, users can see clearly the age of QQ through the personal information.
- In 2004, Tencent launched QQ hierarchy. At the very beginning, this hierarchy was calculated with the hour unit and at that time, most users kept logging in to QQ to increase their QQ level. This results in the critic of wasting energy(such as wasting Electrical energy and so on)by a lot of social medias. Thus Tencent changed the level measurement from hour unit to daily unit due to the involvement of the relevant departments.
Controversies and criticisms
Dispute with Qihoo 360
In 2010, Chinese anti-virus company, Qihoo 360, analyzed the QQ protocol and accused QQ of automatically scanning users' computers and of uploading their personal information to QQ's servers without users' consent. In response, Tencent called 360 itself malware and denied users with 360 installed access to some QQ services. The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information reprimanded both companies for "improper competition" and ordered them to come to an accord.[39]
Government surveillance
Some observers have criticized QQ's compliance in the Chinese government's Internet surveillance and censorship.[40] A 2013 report by Reporters Without Borders specifically mentioned QQ as allowing authorities to monitor online conversations for keywords or phrases and track participants by their user number.[41]
Adware controversy
The Chinese version of QQ makes use of embedded advertisements. Older versions of the client had been branded as malicious adware by some antivirus and anti-spyware vendors.[42][43][44]
Both the Chinese and International versions of QQ had been tested.[45]
Bloatware
The resources required to run QQ have increased substantially since it was first released, which has caused some people to turn to third-party "lite" versions.[citation needed]
See also
- Tencent
- Comparison of instant messaging clients
- List of virtual communities with more than 100 million active users
References
- ↑ "Qq.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-02-02.
- ↑ "Tencent Announces 2012 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results". PR Newswire. 20 March 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ↑ http://im.qq.com/qq/2012/
- ↑ QQ for Mac
- ↑ QQ International Windows download page
- ↑
- ↑ QQ2011 at the iOS App Store
- ↑ QQ HD for iPad at the iOS App Store
- ↑ QQ for Pad
- ↑ WebQQ
- ↑ QQ2013 (Simplified Chinese)
- ↑ QQ2012 Traditional Chinese
- ↑ QQ Concept
- ↑ QQ for Linux
- ↑ QQ for Android
- ↑ Tencent Messenger
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Mair, Victor (26 April 2011). "A New Morpheme in Mandarin". Language Log. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 "What is QQ?". qWhatIs.com. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 McLaughlin, Ryan (21 April 2009). "Understanding Chinese Web site names". Ryan-McLaughlin.com. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Jucha, Nicolas (1 September 2012). "QQ – China's instant messenger". gbtimes. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ↑ "im.qq.com/qq/mac/". Im.qq.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "WebQQ". webqq.qq.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "WebQQ Mini". w.qq.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "QQ for Linux". im.qq.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ 手机QQ2008beta2发布
- ↑ "dnf.qq.com/vip/info.htm". Dnf.qq.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "People's Daily Online - Central Bank alert on "virtual money"". English.people.com.cn. 2007-01-12. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "Virtual currency requires tough new regulations". News.xinhuanet.com. 2007-02-12. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ Ye, Juliet (November 29, 2007). "Debate Over IM Add-Ons in China". The Wall Street Journal.
- ↑ "QQ International Official Homepage". Tencent. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "QQ International for Android". Tencent. Retrieved 2012-10-30.
- ↑ "QQ International for iOS". Tencent. Retrieved 2014-01-15.
- ↑ www.livemint.com/2008/06/25234912/Ibibo-will-sell-50-to-Tencent.html
- ↑ "harryd844.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/zing-chat-prepares-to-sword-yahoo-chat/". Harryd844.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "news.digitaltrends.com/news-article/14367/aol-rolls-out-aim-6-5". News.digitaltrends.com. 2007-10-03. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ RenRen IPO’s biggest hurdle might be PengYou, TradingStocks.me, April 2011.
- ↑ "Pidgin Developer Website". http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/13193. http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/13193.
- ↑ "Miranda IM - Addons - MirandaQQ2". Addons.miranda-im.org. 2010-12-25. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ Hille, Kathrin (2010-11-21). "Beijing probes Tencent and Qihoo 360". Beijing: Financial Times. Retrieved 2011-01-09.
- ↑ Wines, Michael; Lafraniere, Sharon; Ansfield, Jonathan (2010-04-07). "China’s Censors Tackle and Trip Over the Internet". The New York Times.
- ↑ "China - The Enemies of Internet". Reporters Without Borders. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
- ↑ "Spyware Research Center - Tencent QQ". Tenebril. 2004-10-27. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "www.ca.com/us/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453083549". Ca.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "Remove Tencent QQ - Spyware / Adware Uninstall Instruction". Securemost.com. Retrieved 2011-01-14.
- ↑ "Virustotal Report for QQ 2013". Virustotal.com. Retrieved 2013-10-30."Virustotal Report for QQ International". Virustotal.com. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
External links
- (Chinese) Official website
- (Chinese) QQ Portal
- (Chinese) qq
- (English) "Inside QQ" research report by +8* Plus Eight Star
- (English) Learning Chinese Using QQ (English-Chinese QQ Translator)
- (English) QQ International (multilanguage)
- (English) Tencent's first offering in the United States
- (English) Tencent QQ services overview
- (English) List of official QQ client alternatives
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||