The WeChat in the eyes of The New York Times, the "Swiss Army Knife" in the Internet Age

In the current China, just open a smart phone and check the usage time or power consumption of each app. The first place on the list, the app that consumes at least 30% of mobile phone resources must be WeChat. This has not only become an open secret in the country, but it has now reached the United States across the ocean.

Recently, the New York Times, one of the mainstream media in the United States, produced a short video titled "How China is changing your Internet". It featured China's WeChat. 5 minutes. The short film was widely republished and commented once it was launched, and it has already played over 4 million times on Facebook.

In the video, The New York Times stated that in the field of mobile Internet, China has always played an imitator role. From Google to Baidu, from YouTube to Youku, from Twitter to Sina Weibo, from Whatsapp to WeChat, a variety of foreign Internet star products can find a perfect alternative in China.

But now, Chinaâ€™s role has undergone a 180-degree reversal, and the most prominent representative here is WeChat, which has been evolving itself. In fact, almost omnipotent WeChat has long since upgraded from a simple social app to an entry-level application platform for mobile Internet, which shows foreign operators a possible future form of mobile Internet, and it also triggers many Imitation of foreign manufacturers.

From the viewpoint of foreigners, what are the advantages of WeChat?

Gather many apps in one

Due to the fact that it can replace many foreign star apps at one time, WeChat is known as a omnipotent â€œSwiss Army Knifeâ€ in the video.

The video concludes that foreign users need to conduct daily communication and exchange via WhatsApp, conduct real-time voice and video calls via Skype or FaceTime, share life through social media such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and shop online via Amazon and PayPal. In China, all these functions can be perfectly solved through a app called WeChat.

In addition, the video also mentions the additional features that WeChat has that are not available in many foreign applications, such as WeChat's online registration services, wealth management investment services, traffic congestion real-time heat maps, and so on.

WeChat wallet is rich in content

In addition to WeChat itself, foreign media also compared the WeChat wallet to a Trojan horse for mobile platforms. Because it uses the payment as an entrance, it quickly "breaks down" all kinds of money-related scenarios that are closely linked with the lives of the people and are closely linked with the people's lives.

From movie tickets to airline tickets, from shopping to charity donations, from drink and fun to investment and wealth management, from medical registration to travel by car, from credit card repayments to living expenses, all the daily scenes related to money can be in WeChat wallets. To find a one-stop implementation, users do not need to leave WeChat App to complete almost all currency transactions in their lives. Truly realized the existence of WeChat as a lifestyle.

In the video, for example, users can order offline housekeeping services on WeChat Wallet's add-on services and conveniently recommend them to friends through WeChat, and then use WeChat to make friends for dinner, and post-meal payment and transfer can also use WeChat. Even after receiving the money, we also purchased wealth management products through WeChat Wallet. These common living situations can all be realized through WeChat.

However, in China, this seems to be a low penetration rate. The application scenarios where users use Wechat most are red envelopes, transfers, repayments, and purchases of wealth management products. The rest of the additional functions seem to find corresponding alternatives, such as the US Mission and the Volkswagen.

Focus on user needs

When talking about the mobile Internet, everyone thinks of product managers first, thinks of user experience, thinks about interaction and personalized perception, but in the United States and most other countries, these words only stop in the buzzword phase, and are far from being like WeChat. Fall to the product, fall into place.

For example, most social apps in the United States only use the camera to take pictures, but WeChat can scan for translations and scan codes to pay; use only a microphone for voice chat, but WeChat can identify songs and TV shows; only use GPS to determine their location, but WeChat can search for nearby businesses and friends. The above-mentioned functions that may be more practical for users, foreign social apps are not implemented for users.

In addition, WeChat is still working hard to create tools that make it easier for companies and practitioners to shop and commercialize on WeChat.

Social extension

As the most advanced function, social elements are being used by WeChat to expand and utilize all aspects of the product, which is not done by foreign social software.

In WeChat, users can not only get services through the public number, but also conveniently communicate and interact with brands and agencies on the public number, such as issuing a discount code, promoting a promotional event, consulting a business process, and accepting each Feedback complaints, etc.

There are various key functions in the WeChat wallet, none of which are enhanced through social attributes. AA payment between friends for dinner, red envelope greetings during the Chinese New Year holiday for family members, movie purchase tickets and housekeeping service online payment recommended by family members. If there is no social element between people, it is difficult to imagine WeChat. What does it look like?

In contrast, many foreign apps seem to be only making one user more and more huge social networks, but they have not tried to use social networking to expand more user needs.

Although there are many advantages mentioned above, in the face of the ever-increasing WeChat empire, the â€œNew York Timesâ€ has also raised a concern at the end of the video clip: Almost every omnipotent WeChat holds daily life, food, entertainment and entertainment. Accumulated all the big data exchanged and communicated. If such a comprehensive and huge amount of data is completely mastered by a single company, will there be an Orwellian "autocracy and dictatorship"? This is a question worthy of our consideration.