Reuters, Beijing More than half a million TikTok users recently joined the platform in protest of the short video app's likely impending prohibition in the US, bringing Chinese social networking service Red Note into the spotlight.


In China, the platform is called "Xiaodong’s" in Chinese. It is a well-known lifestyle app where users post recommendations and record their lives.
The following information relates to the app:

Describe this application.

In China, Red Note is frequently seen as a localized version of Instagram. "Little Red Book" is the English translation of its Chinese name, Xiaodong’s, which typically refers to a compilation of quotes by Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

The most popular categories on the app are travel, fashion, food, and beauty, and it is generally considered the go-to search engine for suggestions in China these days. In China, the majority of its users are female and young.

Its UI differs from that of Instagram or TikTok in that it shows several postings at once, including longer-form text, images, and videos.

Users can call one another, share their postings, have conversations, and make purchases. Livestreaming sales have been a major focus of the site lately.

Chinese media said that it has over 300 million monthly active users as of 2023.

REDNOTE IS OWN BY WHOM?

Miranda Qu, the current president, and Charlwin Mao, the CEO, co-founded the app in Shanghai in 2013. At first, they marketed the app as "Hong Kong Shopping Guide" and catered to Chinese travellers seeking suggestions for places to visit outside of the mainland.
One possible IPO candidate is RedNote. Chinese tech behemoths Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) and Tencent, Singaporean state investor Temasek, and venture capital companies GSR Ventures, DST Global, and GGV Capital are among the shareholders.

According to China's Hurun wealthy list, Qu has a fortune of 12 billion yuan, whereas Mao has a personal fortune of about 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion).

ARE THERE GLOBAL GOALS FOR IT?

Although users can switch the app's language, the majority of the information has so far been in Mandarin, and the app is primarily used by Chinese users.

RedNote is caught off guard by the surge of TikTok users. According to two people with knowledge of the business, they were rushing to develop English-Chinese translation technologies and figure out how to control English-language material.

Instead of dividing its software into domestic and international versions, RedNote merely keeps one version. ByteDance, on the other hand, has a version of TikTok for mainland China called Douyin, in part to adhere to Chinese government moderation regulations, while Tencent operates both domestic and international versions of its WeChat app.

According to the insiders, the company is eager to capitalise on the unexpected surge in attention because executives see it as a possible route to becoming as well-known worldwide as TikTok. A request for comment from RedNote was not answered.
($1 is equivalent to 7.3317 Chinese yuan).