Qing Mang, an AI-powered reading app, is heavily touted as “the next killer app” that can change China's content distribution landscape. (Photo : Getty Images)
Qing Mang, an AI-powered reading app, is heavily touted as "the next killer app" for its combination of three different content distribution channels. CEO and founder Wang Junyu hopes to cover enough ground to satisfy China's information-hungry market through innovative content recommendations.
Tech in Asia expounded on the three kinds of content distribution channels Qing Mang integrates: mobile news apps, personalized news aggregators, and social media platforms.
The app aims to utilize the combination of all three to induce longer usage through truly personal recommendations.
Users can arrange their subscriptions through Qing Mang's chatbot called "Little Flower." Algorithm-induced replies constitute a variation of content themes for recommendations, with users having around 100 theme selections to choose from.
Content curation in Qing Mang also goes by an interest-based approach, wherein staff and registered users edit and arrange multiple articles under each of the available themes. In that way, users gain a more tailored experience on the app, as it gives them more specific choices based on their interests.
What's more, Qing Mang promotes communal reading experiences by allowing users to highlight portions and make notes within the content.
That sort of functionality enables users to share to others what they think on certain content, as well as highlight salient portions that they wish to emphasize on.
Layout-wise, Qing Mang promises a world of convenience to users. Although the app offers a website version, it nonetheless proves to impress with its intent to up the ante on reading experience, with no ads to serve as distractions.
Wang, whose firm Wan Dou Jia was purchased by e-commerce giant Alibaba for $200 million, was not short of optimism in describing Qing Mang's prospects for the future, though he recognizes that the app's growth would require a slow yet careful pace.
China's mighty content distribution scene has long been dominated by WeChat, popular for its instant messaging and cross-platform capabilities.
Numerous WeChat bloggers have since enabled the app to become a vast content repository, in turn enabling it to form a native ecosystem called WeChat Official Accounts.
Qing Mang's challenge in that wise is to attract people to switch to its platform amid WeChat's powerhouse of a content network, since several of the most popular content available in China come from WeChat Official Accounts, naturally encouraging users to use WeChat more than rely on other platforms.
For that, Qing Mang has sought to provide a short-term catchup solution against WeChat called Mini Platforms+, although balancing valuable reading experiences with profitability would remain a challenge for the app, what with the lesser advertising prospects it entails.
