I made mention of QQ International in this week’s newsletter, but just in case you didn’t see that part or aren’t getting the newsletter (which you should), the weekly rant was on how QQ is basically kicking the ever-lovin’ crap out of our instant messengers in literally every way you can think of.

What is QQ?

QQ is the #1 instant messenger in China, however as of early 2010 QQ International is a version that you can use in English, Japanese or French.

Why is it better than everything we have?

Let’s start with the interface.

The bottom right of the messenger has a nice start-button style button that gets you to everywhere you need to go in the client. It’s layout is the model of efficiency and simplicity.

You would think that Microsoft with its Live Messenger would have come up with this first. Or Yahoo. Or AIM. Or Trillian. Or Pidgin. Nope. QQ did it – and it’s great.

Note that every menu item has a nice friendly icon to give you visual cues. That’s good design.

Now let’s look at some chat window functions.

Screen capturing? Short video clip sending? Video images? Yes. You can do this all on-the-fly in QQ.

What I’m amazed by more than anything else is the screen capture function. It’s a built-in feature that does not require any external software. You would be amazed at how useful this is. When chatting with someone and you want to explain what to click on for a particular web site, hit the button, drag, click "Finish", press enter, Done. It’s send direct to the person you’re chatting with inside the chat window.

Can you say "innovative"? Why can’t AIM/Yahoo/MSN have this?

Now let’s take a look at the message manager.

Have you ever wanted to quickly find something you or who you were chatting with said in the past? Well, good luck with that on AIM/Yahoo/MSN because it’s a nightmare.

With QQ on the other hand, everything is searchable just like if you were searching emails, and you can filter it any way you want. By one contact, some, all, by group, chat.. it’s all there!

Social integration – but only in Chinese, for now

QQ is also a colossal social network with something they call Qzone, but unfortunately it’s only in Chinese for the time being.

Qzone can be used anywhere. On the PC, on the smartphone, on the iPad.. QQ has all the bases covered and then some.

When you use QQ International, you truly see how far behind the others are

QQ is a huge breath of fresh air into the otherwise stale world of instant messaging. Tencent (the company who owns QQ) has been continually updating their service and bringing in new and useful features while others are struggling to keep up.

To put this in perspective, MSN/Live is arguably the #1 most-used instant messenger in the world, but Microsoft lost in that market when it came to China. The reason? It’s not from blocking, because MSN is used there. It’s because QQ is simply better. Way better.

I’ve been using QQ International for about a week now. Even in beta form (the int’l version is in beta 3 currently) it’s stable and rock-solid. No stuttering or pausing like MSN or Yahoo. It loads fast in every way. Works perfectly in XP or Windows 7.

The chat experience

As for the chat experience, I’ve chatted with roughly 30 to 50 Chinese citizens only because I don’t know any locals on this continent that use it. And yes it is weird to refer to your locale on a continental level, but that’s how it is when it comes to QQ. Chinese people are very friendly all around and easy to get along with as long as you don’t use slang or sarcasm (it’s a cultural thing). Put another way, if you had to actually explain to someone how American slang and sarcasm works, could you? I couldn’t, because I believe that would take several days just to begin to explain those subjects.

My only complaint about QQ International is that it does not do chat windows in tabs, meaning each chat window is separate. It’s a minor tradeoff however compared to all the other useful features it has.

Final notes

I’m not telling you to dump your AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Trillian, Pidgin, Miranda, Digsby or whatever you’re using now. Not at all.

What I am saying is that if you want an IM client that’s actually, dare I say, fun, QQ Int’l is it. Remember when IM’ing was fun at one point? QQ brings it back in fine style.

For you gamers out there, QQ also does very well at recognizing full-screen games and doesn’t get in your way while you’re in gameplay. If you have a team or just a group of friends looking for something different and better, use QQ. You’ll really like it – especially considering you can send screen shots on-the-fly, connect up a webcam easily, start a group for your gaming team on the QQ service (its integrated right into the client), and so on.

Give QQ a try – it might be just what you were looking for.

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