720 Dumplings 水饺
As I signed onto MSN instant messenger yesterday, I was greeted with a bunch of “heart china” signatures.
too lazy to take my own screenshot, here is one from shanghaiist
Similarly reported by Shanghaiist and Wangjainshuo according to QQ MSN China tabulates over 2 million users adding this signature! (in chinese)
To summarize, this was a response by chinese netizens to all the negative press China has been getting in the world arena. Furthermore, there has even been a call to boycott French goods (like carrefour) given what happened in Paris during the torch relay.
Politics aside, what I wanted to highlight was the phenomenon of using IM signatures as a viral tool in China. People in the US use email as the primary tool for everyday communication whereas in China it’s IM (as mentioned here and here). In one signature change, you’ve accomplished the equivalent of sending out an email to your 100+ contacts on your contact list. Moreover, when you email something funny or interesting to your friends, you probably only select a subset of friends whereas your IM signature is a broadcast to your entire contact list no matter if they are acquaintances or best buds.
I wonder why IM signatures hasn’t caught on in the US?
5 responses so far ↓
1 roo // Apr 20, 2008 at 10:26 pm
AIM and Gmail chat both have it. so does facebook, with its “what are you doing now” status update feature.
2 admin // Apr 21, 2008 at 10:35 am
do a lot of people use it? i think i remember aol having it, but you have to hover over it to see the msg, no?
3 roo // Apr 21, 2008 at 9:53 pm
people update their facebook status more often than AIM or Gchat but yes they are being used. no hovering required!
4 Rocking // May 1, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I don’t think people have lots of time on hand to chat IM frequently, let alone noticing the sig change. But I know some business people in the US do use it.
5 Belle Chua // May 13, 2008 at 3:53 am
I totally agreed on how powerful social media tools like blogs, social bookmarking, as well as wikis does.
It really changes the way we cshare info to the way we communicate.
I just started to use Twitter to communicate with my friends and I noticed how it slowly creep into my life and now, I cannot do with out it!
I can only say, I really hope such cool gadget will spring up more and faster so that we can really anticipate the small change it cause to our lives in a good way (I hope)!
Leave a Comment