Chinese tech giant Baidu launches new skill-learning social networking app Youpu

Chinese tech giant Baidu has launched a new social networking app Youpu, which helps users learn new skills through mutual supervision online.

Photo credit: Baidu

A user on the app can set up a goal, for instance, and more people can join the team. The user can then report what they achieve each day until they have succeeded at their goal.

While the younger generation in China has more interest in learning new skills, no solutions are available to address this need, the company said in a statement. That’s why the app aims to provide a community for them to share and learn from like-minded people.

The app, which was rolled out in early November, is currently available on iOS devices. Baidu said it will launch the app for the Android market next year.

China-based Keep operates on a similar notion but focuses on the fitness community. The company is backed by Tencent, Goldman Sachs, and GGV Capital, among others.

According to local news outlet 36Kr, Youpu is Baidu’s third social networking app after it launched anonymous social networking app Tingtong and voice social network app Yinbo.

In China, there were around 882 million social media users in 2019, and that number is expected to reach 1.1 billion by 2025, according to Statista. Major players in the social networking space include Tencent’s WeChat, Twitter-like Sina Weibo, and short-video platform Douyu (the Chinese version of TikTok), among others.