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Apps of the World

The obscure social media app beloved by China's tech scene

Jike might be the most important social network in Chinese tech.

By Caiwei Chen
28 July 2023

In February, Wang Huiwen, co-founder of China's delivery giant
Meituan, publicly announced his plans to build China's OpenAI. But
instead of announcing the news on China's most popular microblogging
site Weibo or its ubiquitous messaging app WeChat, he published a
post on Jike -- a niche social media platform little known to most
Chinese internet users, but beloved among tech workers, investors,
and industry experts. In a post titled "AI Heroes wanted," Wang
invited Jike users to contact him and join his new venture.

  * A screenshot from social media app Jike inside a wireframe of a
    phone.
    A variety of activities can be found on an interactive map of
    Jikeville, including a coffee shop rating zone and an in-app job
    market.
  * A screenshot from social media app Jike inside a wireframe of a
    phone.
    Jike encourages users to join interest-based discussion
    "circles". The topics are often fine-grained and curated by human
    editors.
  * A screenshot from social media app Jike inside a wireframe of a
    phone.
    In the "Attitudes" section, Jike users vote on trending topics on
    the app like "Who do you think will win the Large Language Model
    race in China?".

Launched in 2015 as an information aggregator, Jike has since grown
into a social media platform indispensable to young Chinese tech
workers. It combines the timely discourse of Twitter and the
interest-based communities of Reddit: On the Jike app, users can
follow each other and join discussion "circles"' centered around
specific topics (popular ones include "AI Exploration Club," "Reality
Show Lovers," and "A Regular Day as a Product Manager"). Although
Jike's user base (2 million in 2019) is marginal compared to other
platforms -- Weibo has 593 million and WeChat has 1.67 billion -- the
app is a favorite among founders of big internet companies, such as
Meituan's Wang Xing, and partners at top venture capital firms
including ZhenFund's Dai Yusen.

Part of Jike's appeal is its tightly knit community. Unlike most
platforms today, Jike does not use in-app ads to lure users or
algorithms to push content, but encourages active engagement through
carefully curated topics and in-depth discussions across the app.
Within the Jike community, dubbed "Jikeville," users call each other
"Ji You" (translated as Jike Friends), and organize in-person
meetups. They share new software they've developed, track workouts
with one another, and vote on whether or not they should buy the new
Apple Vision Pro.

In 2019, Jike was shut down for a year because of "content moderation
issues," but made a quick comeback in 2020, according to its CEO Ye
Xidong in an interview with a Chinese media outlet. As the ChatGPT
frenzy hit China this year, Jike became the go-to-hub for people to
discuss the rise of generative artificial intelligence and share
ideas for AI startups. In March, Xidong announced that the company
would organize an AI hackathon as part of "Hack Engine" -- an
accelerator that aimed to be China's Y Combinator -- and invited
high-profile entrepreneurs to mentor the next generation. "The next
AI revolution is happening on Jike," Dai Yusen, managing partner of
ZhenFund, posted on the app.

Factbox

App Name:   Jike (Ji Ke )
Developer:  Shanghai Ruoyou Network Technology Co. Ltd. (Shang Hai Ruo You Ke Ji 
            You Xian Gong Si )
Country:    China
Release     April 2015
Date:
Platforms:  iOS, Android

Caiwei Chen is a Rest of World reporter based in New York.
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