Quality beyond beauty is key to real-time fun

With eyes glued to her smartphone screen, Wang Liming, a 22-year-old college student, is busy sending digital lollipops on YY.com, a leading Chinese live streaming platform.

Her goal is ambitious: to send out 1,000 virtual lollipops within 10 minutes. If Wang and thousands of fans like her meet the target with joint efforts, they can ask a popular entertainment star who live-streams a concert online, to do five push-ups or sing more songs.

YY's online show thus succeeded in engaging users for protracted periods. Such a strategy is part of the Beijing-based company's broad efforts to grow the supply of quality content on its platform.