How We Discovered the Underground Chinese App Market

https://medium.com/startup-lessons/374a4f06c903

by msacca • 13 years ago

18 10 13 years ago

joelle• 13 years ago

Love the connection between Robert Fortune and the tea heist as a lasting wound and a reason for China's underground app market. Such an interesting/frustrating read!

msacca2• 13 years ago

It was amazing the similarities once I started researching the background of Intellectual Property rights in China

Jenniphur• 13 years ago

Another great example of how to hone your app's strategy by adapting to the cultural expectation (even when the obstacles are illegal and unfortunate). Thanks for sharing!

msacca2• 13 years ago

Thanks Jenn! Really glad you enjoyed it.

elchapolito• 13 years ago

would love to see a follow up with details about revenue from ads and if it was able to offset any of your lost revenue from sales.

saurik2• 13 years ago

Look, I realize it's fun to make enemies and drop big names, but this app was not "listed in Cydia" any more than an app might be "listed in Firefox": the closest something can get to being "listed in Cydia" is to come in a default repository, and those are all (as is Cydia itself) anti-piracy.

saurik2• 13 years ago

(The author of this article saw my comment on reddit and modified his article.)

arb99• 13 years ago

Then we came across KuaiYong (aka 7659.com), an app market that allows users to install iOS apps without even jailbreaking their phone.

How is that possible? Do the chinese markets use different iphone exploits than western ones when it comes to iphones?

On 7659.com, after google translate it says:

Prompted to enter your Apple ID case solutions Installed applications prompt "Enter the Apple ID bomb box" or "flash back", you can use the top right corner of the "flash back (bullet box) Repair" resolved. If the repair is not successful, please update to the latest version of this application. Since this month Apple service adjustments, it is recommended not to use the recent Apple ID or appstore, to reduce repair frequency. On the phone or iPad directly fix "bomb box", "flash back" of the upcoming release of new features, so stay tuned.

Found some info about it:

http://9to5mac.com/2013/04/19/chinese-pirates-create-web-bas...

KuaiYong used a bulk enterprise licence to get around the safeguards designed to protect apps from being pirated. The new website, 7659.com, is essentially just a front end to the app: downloading any iOS software from the site will download and install the KuaiYong app if it isn’t already installed.

kayhongxin2• 13 years ago

There are a lot of successful software companies in China. Think about Alibaba IPO. Tencent also has a lot of successful Apps. I just don't like the way you show your opinion. It sounds like "we made money in USA; we made nothing in China. China is wrong! Chinese market is weird, their civilization is bad." Maybe it's you don't understand China and Chinese enough, haven't done enough research, haven't talked or made friends with any Chinese-your future customers.

Maybe I misunderstood your point, but when I read articles like this in which China sounds like a big ridicule, (actually it is a market you haven't win and don't know how to win),I feel angry and sad. You are criticizing your customers, how can you win? (I am a Chinese living in the US working at software industry.)

Go to China. Make friends. Sit with them and observe how they use their iPhones.

kayhongxin2• 13 years ago

http://buswk.co/1izo5t9

How We Discovered the Underground Chinese App Market

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