Tencent offering links

Tencent, the operator of QQ, the World’s largest instant messaging service, will offer users links to 3rd party websites and access to externally developed applications for the first time.
Martin Lau, Tencent’s President, said the move would change the way China’s largest Internet company by revenue makes money.

Tencent is testing about ten 3rd party applications to run on QZone, its social network, and Tenpay, its online payment platform. It is also testing several external websites that users could link to in the way Facebook members can link to other sites with the “like” function.

At the moment, fewer than 10 other sites are taking part in the tests, but Martin Lau said, ‘we want to take it to 10 times that number in the next 6 to 12 months.’
Live Trading News reports the announcement comes as the company works to repair the damage from a squabble with Qihoo 360, a local AntiVirus software provider.