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Failed anonymous chat app is pivoting to social shopping
Failed chat app Toilet (yes, it's really called Toilet) is becoming a social shopping service like Xiao Hong Shu called Haoji
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This article originally appeared on ABACUS
In January, it seemed like everyone believed they could take their own piece of China's social media market, currently dominated by Tencent. Three messaging apps were launched in a single day.
Four months later, it’s now clear that none of them had what it takes to fight the behemoth that is WeChat. Liaotianbao, an updated version of Bullet Messenger, has reportedly disbanded its team. ByteDance’s Snapchat clone Duoshan never took off, with some people complaining about its less than satisfying user experience. And now the anonymous messaging app Toilet (seriously, that’s its real name) has quietly pivoted away from messaging to become a shopping app called Haoji.
Haoji, which literally means “easy to remember,” works similarly to one of China’s most popular social shopping apps Xiaohongshu. Users can post photos and videos sharing their opinions of certain products. They can also tag products in their pictures to send their friends to a page where they can purchase the products themselves.
Many weren’t surprised that Toilet didn’t take off.
There was never much optimism for the app’s chances. Besides operating in a highly-competitive market dominated by one of the largest tech companies in the world, government crackdowns have also made things harder for smaller social apps.
Xinmei Shen joined the Post in 2017 and is a technology reporter. She covers content, entertainment, social media and internet culture. Previously, she was with the Post’s tech news site, Abacus. Before that, she was a reporting intern at The Information whilst studying at the University of Hong Kong.
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