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The Many Ways of WeChat
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Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#12I'm biased working on the thing, but speaking purely a user, I feel WeChat gives us a peek of the phone OS we'll see in 3 years. The recent "messaging apps will eat everything" spin is burying the lede. What's happening, broadly, is that in some places (esp. Asia), OS/phone vendors are losing in the early stages of a war between platform (iOS, Android) and meta-platform (things like WeChat, LINE, FB). Yes, its centra…
Very interesting angle. I am heavily using WeChat on a daily basis for all purpose: keep in touch with friends, read news, share content (audio, video, articles, pdf, etc.), call people worldwide (very good video stream in China), get alerts from servers, quickly reach distributed teams, pay in restaurants or bars, order train tickets, transfer money to friends, pay online, top up my mobile, etc.
It is by far the app that I use the most on my mobile. For a lot of my contacts, I do not have their phone numbers, email address or full name. I also believe I do not know anybody that do not have a WeChat account (from my landlord, the restaurant down my work to the legal contact of some of our contracts).
I will be leaving Asia soon, I am not sure what will replace this while settling in Europe. My phone could only use WeChat, I will not see big differences, save for emails. What other apps are so central for other markets? I merely use Whatsapp but it is far from having the same extend of functionalities nor such a complete experience.
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#13I'm biased working on the thing, but speaking purely a user, I feel WeChat gives us a peek of the phone OS we'll see in 3 years. The recent "messaging apps will eat everything" spin is burying the lede. What's happening, broadly, is that in some places (esp. Asia), OS/phone vendors are losing in the early stages of a war between platform (iOS, Android) and meta-platform (things like WeChat, LINE, FB). Yes, its centra…
Very interesting angle. I am heavily using WeChat on a daily basis for all purpose: keep in touch with friends, read news, share content (audio, video, articles, pdf, etc.), call people worldwide (very good video stream in China), get alerts from servers, quickly reach distributed teams, pay in restaurants or bars, order train tickets, transfer money to friends, pay online, top up my mobile, etc. It is by far the app…
While anecdotal, I've noticed that WhatsApp use and use cases are steadily increasing in my surroundings.
At first it was just an sms replacement. Then people started using the group chats for (mostly) silly stuff or family groups. Then the group chat function started to be used more functionally for work and, say, flatmate-type stuff coordination and communication.
I wouldn't be surprised that if (or perhaps when) WhatsApp adds more functionality, it will quickly be picked up by everyone around me. I'm mostly surprised what WhatsApp hasn't done this already, especially considering that Facebook already offers a number of functions that I'd love to see integrated (to a limited degree) into whatsapp's paradigm (event creation/planning, more advanced photo sharing, 'blogging').
Does anyone have any idea why WhatsApp isn't becoming more like WeChat?
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#14Just a small reminder that the reason WeChat (and Baidu) are so popular in China is because Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Google are blocked there. It's easier to grab a local market when free competition is made illegal. I'd be more impressed if they were forced to compete with the rest of the world and in fact, they are doing pretty badly in most of the rest of the world where they are forced to compete.
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#15I'm biased working on the thing, but speaking purely a user, I feel WeChat gives us a peek of the phone OS we'll see in 3 years. The recent "messaging apps will eat everything" spin is burying the lede. What's happening, broadly, is that in some places (esp. Asia), OS/phone vendors are losing in the early stages of a war between platform (iOS, Android) and meta-platform (things like WeChat, LINE, FB). Yes, its centra…
What language(s) is the backend written in? Are there any pieces written using Erlang/functional langueages?
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#16My biggest gripe about WeChat is that it doesn't support multiple logins.
It's tied down to 1 mobile device and there is no desktop or web-based client that can login using a simple username and password. I switch devices very often and very much prefer that information flow with me as I switch from place to place, device to device, transparent to others around me, and not require me be attached to a single piece of hardware. This is something that Facebook chat does very well. Unfortunately, my entire social circle uses WeChat so I don't exactly have a choice.
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#17Just a small reminder that the reason WeChat (and Baidu) are so popular in China is because Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Google are blocked there. It's easier to grab a local market when free competition is made illegal. I'd be more impressed if they were forced to compete with the rest of the world and in fact, they are doing pretty badly in most of the rest of the world where they are forced to compete.
Yes and no. KakaoTalk, LINE, and WhatsApp were not blocked in China at the time, and WeChat was, in its early stages, essentially a Chinese clone of those others. WeChat's success had a lot more to do with
* Being able to login with your QQ account and import your QQ friends (WeChat and QQ are made by the same company, and for many people, WeChat replaced QQ)
* Catering to Chinese users, including Chinese payment systems, Chinese train/plane tickets, Chinese taxis, and pretty much everything else local
* Network effects within the Chinese community
* Aggressively targeting Chinese distribution channels
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#18Wechat is way more than just a SMS replacement. You can pretty much run your life on it. In China, you can book hotels, buy train tickets, pretty much everything on it as well.
What I really like about it is you can create different circles of people (kinda of what Google+ tried to popularize and failed) and communicate with all of them at once. A lot of people are part of circles with their grade school friends, with all their relatives (distant cousins too), etc. etc.
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#19My biggest gripe about WeChat is that it doesn't support multiple logins. It's tied down to 1 mobile device and there is no desktop or web-based client that can login using a simple username and password. I switch devices very often and very much prefer that information flow with me as I switch from place to place, device to device, transparent to others around me, and not require me be attached to a single piece of…
It works as designed. WeChat is focusing on mobile phones. Everyone has a phone and it's always with him/her. PC and tablets become the extensions of the phone. There are WeChat clients for PC and Mac. But you still need the phone to login. It always reminds you that WeChat is a mobile app.
Re: The Many Ways of WeChat
#20Just a small reminder that the reason WeChat (and Baidu) are so popular in China is because Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Google are blocked there. It's easier to grab a local market when free competition is made illegal. I'd be more impressed if they were forced to compete with the rest of the world and in fact, they are doing pretty badly in most of the rest of the world where they are forced to compete.
Not necessarily true.
Baidu was popular even before Google was blocked in China. Taobao is more successful than Ebay and Amazon in China, even Ebay and Amazon have never been blocked in China.
My personal experience of buying a book from amazon.cn is much worse than from Taobao. It took Amazon a week to deliver the book to a small town in the rural area but Taobao a day.
Many successful enterprises from outside fail to succeed in China, even they are not blocked.
For businesses, understand your customers' needs is essential to the success. Sadly many of them, both from western and China failed to realise this.
The same business model or user experience might works like magic in a market but fails horribly in another.