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Five things Facebook will need to do to become more like WeChat

Zuckerberg says he should have learned from WeChat

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Five things Facebook will need to do to become more like WeChat
This article originally appeared on ABACUS
Mark Zuckerberg says he wished he had listened to advice about learning from WeChat years ago. It comes after the Facebook CEO published a grand plan outlining where the social network is heading next -- a direction that many point out is similar to what WeChat has been doing.
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But what would it take for Facebook to actually become more like WeChat? Let’s take a look:

Private communication

It’s fair to say that WeChat resembles more of a living room than a town square -- a reference Zuckerberg used for Facebook in his announcement

WeChat is based on private messaging instead of real-name profiles. WeChat accounts of individuals are not public. That means unlike on Facebook, you can’t search for someone’s name on WeChat to find their accounts. 

Instead, people are only searchable if you know their WeChat ID (which is usually a string of random or personalized numbers and characters), QQ ID, or phone number. To do that, you’ll probably have at least some sort of connection with the person you want to get in touch with. Users can also opt out from being searchable by those numbers. 

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Just like Facebook, WeChat users can adjust the privacy settings of their posts. But even if they chose public, only the content of that post can be viewed by outsiders. The comments and likes are only viewable by your contacts. It’s probably why WeChat named the section Pengyouquan, meaning “Friends’ circle” in Chinese.

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