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"Chinese messaging service WeChat has\u00A0over 270 million\u00A0active users worldwide at the last count -- how do you compete against its overwhelming popularity?\r\n\r\nWell, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is now paying users who refer new people to its chat app Laiwang.\r\n\r\nAn update is being rolled out to Laiwang which will feature an &amp;quot;invite&amp;quot; button for users to refer their friends, Alibaba told TNW. Every successful invitation will see both the referrer and new user get CNY5 (about $0.80)\u00A0deposited into their Alipay account, and the credit can be spent on any of Alibaba's Tao shopping platforms such as Taobao.\r\n\r\nThis latest initiative comes as Alibaba launches a CNY200 million ($33 million) fund to help traditional companies, online and offline businesses, the media, as well as individuals, to cement a presence on Laiwang.\r\n\r\nPaid referrals are but only one of the many ways Laiwang hopes to attract more users -- last year, it rolled out an interesting\u00A0initiative\u00A0to stand out from the crowd, by\u00A0sharing the profiles of 100,000 female models with its users.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAlibaba announced its Laiwang app clocked\u00A010 million registered users\u00A0in its first month in November last year, still a long way to go before it even comes close to garnering WeChat's numbers.\u00A0However, with such aggressive marketing, Alibaba is obviously giving its all in the mobile messaging battle.\r\n\r\nHeadline image via Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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