This week, Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X as part of his aim to copy Chinese giant WeChat.
Mr Musk has expressed his ambition to turn his social media company, acquired in 2020 for $44bn (£34.4bn), into a much larger platform.
He has previously expressed accolades for WeChat, a "one-stop-shop" that integrates messaging, dating, financial transactions, and social platforms; and has stated that devising something "comparable to that with Twitter... would be an overwhelming achievement".
In a post on X this week, Mr Musk announced that in the upcoming months, "we will be incorporating a full suite of communication capabilities and the capacity to manage your entire financial realm".
He is expecting that the increase in X will result in a boost in revenue - the company has experienced a sharp decline of nearly half its advertising revenue since Mr Musk's acquisition, and the debt it is bearing is significant.
What is WeChat? Why is Elon Musk looking to replicate its success?
Tencent, a technology giant, initiated WeChat in 2011, which is now utilized by nearly all of China's 1.4 billion population.
It is an understatement to refer to this as a super-app.
Their offerings comprise of messaging, voice and video calls, social media platforms, food delivery, mobile payments, gaming, news and even online dating.
It is similar to having WhatsApp, Facebook, Apple Pay, Uber, Amazon, Tinder and much more combined into one.
It is so integrally a part of the Chinese culture that it is almost impossible to exist without it.
The visuals below demonstrate how the interfaces for its components are clearly separate.
It began as a messaging service akin to WhatsApp or iMessage, and has two major functions; the "Chats" feature that works similar to WhatsApp, and "Moments" which resembles Facebook.
WeChat's "Wallet" feature is widely used, and it can be linked to both debit and credit cards. This payment method is accepted by most Chinese stores and online retailers, who use QR codes to allow customers to make the payment. Other services which can be accessed via WeChat include paying bills, investing, and obtaining loans.
WeChat users have access to government services, which allow them to review social security information, pay speeding fines, and make hospital appointments.
During the pandemic, it became essential: with the whole nation under stringent no-Covid regulations, it was impossible to travel without a "health code" generated using the app.
There are certain drawbacks to packing so many features into a single app.
From a utilitarian standpoint, WeChat consumes a major fraction of the space on a cellular device - generally amounting to scores of gigabytes of storage.
Taking it seriously, the expansive influence of WeChat across all aspects of Chinese society has raised concerns about government suppression of speech, monitoring and other concerns regarding privacy.com.
China has imposed restrictions on a wide range of foreign web-based resources, including news websites like BBC, social media outlets such as Facebook, and even Elon Musk's X.com.
The level of supervision by the government over the internet creates a risky environment for people to express their opinions in opposition to the government on WeChat.
It is common for users who have expressed dissenting opinions to have their profiles deactivated for a period of days or even weeks as a result of something they said in chats or on Moments.
Individuals who have revealed even seemingly innocuous information have found themselves at odds with government censors resulting in their accounts and chat groups being blocked.
Kitsch Liao, assistant director of the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, stresses that super-apps such as WeChat fit with Beijing's goal of arranging all facets of existence for the purpose of maintaining control of the nation.
Mainly for the purpose of avoiding "political risk" - anything that may lead to a challenge to the Chinese Communist Party's leadership.
Kecheng Fang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong has attributed WeChat's tremendous success in China to two key factors, as he told the BBC.
In China, most people use smartphones over desktop computers to access WeChat, as the internet was developed at a later time in the nation.
He points out that users on smartphones typically live in walled gardens of apps, rather than on the open web. Moreover, it is easier to construct an "everything app" on smartphones compared to computers.
Mr Fang additionally states that due to there being no competition regulation in China as opposed to in most of the West, a platform such as WeChat is able to obstruct competing outlets like Taobao (a shopping interface) and Douyin (a video application).
It is possible Mr Musk may have success in developing a comparable app beyond China. It appears we are about to see the results of this endeavor - and professionals think it might hinge on digital payments.
Kendra Schaefer, a policy researcher at Trivium China, has pointed out that Elon Musk seems to grasp several important factors which have led to WeChat becoming so integral to everyday life in China, such as the union of social media and digital payments.
She mentions that this could be the key element of the super-app.
Edith Yeung, of Race Capital, highlighted the vast distinction between China and the West in terms of their utilization of digital payment technologies.
In China, the majority of vendors do not take cash or credit cards.
She states that this dissimilarity can be an impediment to Mr Musk's goals. "It will take the developed world more time to put into practice a genuinely cash-free or credit cardless society," she claims.
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