Editor’s note:
HQ Trivia has become popular since late 2017 in the U.S. Now in China, live trivia game is a hit.
“Million”, “gold”, “hero”, “winner”. By putting the daydream of becoming a millionaire in front of users, these Chinese trivia game has soon attracted millions of Chinese to the live game, stopping whatever they were doing and staring at their phone to answer 12 questions several times a day.
Some of these live games have already monetized the traffic while others like Toutiao and Baidu are likely to combine the game with their already sophisticated products.
How long will Chinese users feel entertained? Or how fast will they realize the 2 RMB they earned isn’t worth their twenty minutes’ time?
We should all probably wait and see.
KrASIA Weekly Roundup highlights tech & startup news of the past week, with a focus on Southeast Asia and China. We also pick up the best features from Kr-Asia and the web that are worth your time. Also, there is always something cool for the weekend.
News of the week:
Hyundai, South Korea’s largest automaker, has made a strategic investment in Grab. (Deal Street Asia)
Chinese ride-hailing company Didi has advertised online for a range of jobs in Mexico as it prepares to break into the country, one of rival Uber’s regional strongholds. (Reuters)
Didi announced it will launch a bike-sharing platform, pushing for the deposit-free bike-sharing services. (KrAsia)
Dropbox, the file-sharing private company valued at $10 billion, has filed confidentially for a U.S. initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said. (Bloomberg)
E-commerce platform Bukalapakis planning to build an R&D center in a bid to beef up its ability in AI, machine learning, and drone delivery. (e27)
Live trivia games are going viral in China. With companies launching their own games one after another, the cash prize keeps going high. Commenting on a WeChat moment, Tencent founder Pony Ma stated regulators are expected to intervene while Qihoo 360 founder Zhou Hongyi thinks more Tech Giants are going to weigh in. (36Kr)
Ola teamed up with ICICI Bank, allowing users of the bank to book and pay for Ola rides through the bank’s app. (ICICI)
Dahmakan, a Malaysia-based food delivery startup, mopped up $2.6 million in a funding round led by Y Combinator, joint by Texas Atlantic Capital, Swiss family office Atami Capital, and former founder of PE Fund APAX Partners, and existing investors. The startup aims to expand in other SE Asia market in Q1 2018, particularly to Thailand and Indonesia. (Deal Street Asia, e27)
Best of Kr-Asia Features:
The Investor Behind Didi & Ofo: This Is How I View The Sharing Economy (Part 2)
Knowledge Earns You One Million, Live Trivia Game Is A Hit Now in China.
We are increasingly becoming mere data generators in a world that’s heavily driven by data. So, Say Hi to The Age of No Privacy (Part 1)
Blog posts that worth your time:
The future of live entertainment is participatory, and looks a lot like the past. An explanation of the Magic of HQ Trivia.
My joke cryptocurrency hit $2 billion and something is very wrong.
The Network Effects Map. Case Study: Uber
Cool thing of the week:
Ping-pong is a fun game, but if you want to start to learn it, you’ll need a partner to play with you. You may enjoy the human interaction while doing the sport or you may not because your partner is simply too bad at it.
So, how about playing Ping-pong with a robot coach powered by AI?
It sounds interesting and it is might worth giving it a go.