Ignition Dimension (ID: chaintruth) original
Produced by Burning Finance
Author | Feng Xiaoting
Edit | Rao Xiafei
For the Internet, social needs are the most primitive and basic needs of its users, and any product is unwilling to let go of this demand.
As a leader in the e-commerce track, Taobao has been trying to make breakthroughs in the social field. At the end of 2021, Taobao took advantage of the double 12 shopping festival to launch the voice chat function, upgrading the latest version of Taobao users can initiate voice call invitations to friends on the product detail page and message conversation box, and after connection, they can automatically send the goods they are browsing to their friends.
After the typical chopper 95, Chen Nini naturally did not miss such an opportunity to try early, and after updating Taobao, Chen Nini and her friends tried this new feature of Taobao. After experiencing Taobao voice for two minutes with friends, Chen Nini's attitude flipped from the initial "novel but useless function" to "it feels great", and said that she will continue to try in the future, especially when she interacts with her sisters, Taobao's voiceable and can see each other's browsing product function is very suitable for her kind of people who love to visit e-commerce.
In the process of experience, Burning Finance found that the operation is easy to get started, but it is interesting that at the bottom of the Taobao interface of inviting friends to visit together, there is a significant logo "go to WeChat to add more friends", and in just a few seconds after the invitation is initiated to the friend, if the other party is not connected, it will pop up a reminder "The other party may not be able to answer temporarily, go to WeChat to invite friends to Taobao to answer the phone~".
Another e-commerce platform, Pinduoduo, also launched a social function of spelling and sharing in early 2020, "Spelling Small Circle", where users can share shopping information with friends in the "Spelling Circle", and can also evaluate and like the sharing of friends.
At the beginning of 2021, Douyin launched a "watch video together" function similar to Taobao's "shopping Taobao together", it is understood that this function is a kind of play for Douyin friend room, and Douyin friend room is a space for users to interact with friends, and interactive gameplay includes watching videos together, friends KTV, etc. And after opening the "Watch Together" function, you can also see the words "to invite WeChat or QQ friends".
Little Red Book is also doing social networking, and launched the "group chat" function at the end of 2021. NetEase Cloud Music, AutoNavi Map... Platforms of all sizes have launched social functions in different forms. Obviously, they are looking at the huge potential of social networking.
In the past many years, social traffic has been basically intercepted by WeChat and QQ, and it is difficult for others to shake. After all, WeChat and QQ, as instant messaging applications, are the most commonly used Internet applications by netizens, which means that they are both "user pools" and "traffic pools", especially WeChat and Wechat, which have reached 1.2626 billion monthly active accounts in the world, which can be called giants in the social field.
"It can be said that in the scale of communication users approaching 1 billion, basically everyone has a WeChat account, WeChat is the most basic application for netizens, and it is an application that will keep running in the background for a long time every day." Industry insiders told Burning Finance that although the Internet era has accelerated in recent years, whether it is the Internet of Things or the concept of "meta-universe" that rises in 2021, a new species may appear in the future to connect all smart devices and people, thereby replacing The status of WeChat. "But from the current point of view, an opponent who is equal to WeChat has not yet appeared."
But that doesn't stop other internet platforms from seeing WeChat as an "imaginary enemy." In the past, Alipay had worked social, but finally folded into circle events. Afterwards, some netizens commented on Alipay's social failure, "Who wants to stand next to the ATM machine and talk about the family? ”
The business of directly grabbing the "WeChat rice bowl" is not easy to do, but "borrowing" is always correct. Group chat, voice chat, red envelopes and other necessary functions of social applications began to appear in major applications, trying to dip the light of "social" to extend the length of user stay, and there was no shortage of people building their own private domain traffic pools through WeChat.
As the best traffic carrier, WeChat as a social overlord, its status is self-evident. However, as Internet products invariably step into the social field, step by step to explore the hinterland of WeChat, it is bound to cause pressure on WeChat.
The Internet is social everywhere
In the Internet era, social networking has broken through the spatial boundaries, no longer limited by "the car is very slow, the letter is far away", today, netizens have fully realized the desire to chat anytime, anywhere. For an Internet application, social functions are the most basic components, and the integration of functions is vividly reflected.
"Chat" is not a patent for social apps, but any app equipped with chat can be developed into a social place. Compared with traditional offline social networking, the social circle of the Internet is not limited to social relations, but also multiple relationships. From the earliest PC home page to the mobile APP, although the social platform of netizens continues to migrate with the development of the Internet, it does not trap social in a very few applications. Different Internet applications have given users the right to socialize, and even in order to promote users to better "socialize", different functions have been launched.
Taobao, which only launched the "shop together" function at the end of 2021, also launched the "one-click sharing shopping cart" function during the double 11 in 2021, which allows users to share shopping cart items with friends through this function. Gu Hong, an investment analyst in the consumer industry, believes that the purpose of Taobao can be understood as intentionally pulling in the distance between users, "In the final analysis, Taobao as an e-commerce platform, in the final analysis, is still a tool application, users with shopping needs run out and go, and in order to extend the user's stay time to promote more transactions, it is often necessary to increase user stickiness, and social networking is the best means." ”
There are also users who are happy to share their own "fight small circle". "I add a lot of colleagues and friends to Pinduoduo, and sometimes when I chat about what good products I bought, I will share them directly in the small circle." Some users told Burning Finance that after opening the "Spelling Circle", he would be happy to share, "Because there have been cases where the product link copied to Pinduoduo cannot bounce out the product page, it is clear at a glance in the Spelling Circle, which is much more convenient." ”
Xiaohongshu also launched a group chat function, in the "open chat" column, in addition to "sending private messages", you can also "create a group chat". Little Red Book user Seed Seed also joined a buyer group on the way to visit Little Red Book, and the group often posted some good things to share. According to her observation, some Little Red Book bloggers even hang "group chat" on the home page, and after paying attention to the blogger, they can join the group chat.
In 2021, the application of the group chat function is not only Xiaohongshu.
After the version update of NetEase Cloud Music in August 2021, a group chat function was added to the "Cloud Circle". In this regard, NetEase mentioned in the latest financial report, "NetEase Cloud Music continues to deepen user participation in the music community through continuous efforts in content ecology and product innovation." ”
In addition to the above-mentioned applications, there are many applications that can socialize, in addition to WeChat and QQ, which are commonly used by acquaintances for social interaction, Momo, Soul, Tantan and other applications used by strangers on social networking, and even applications such as Taobao, Weibo, and B Station that are not related to social interaction, users can also initiate chats anytime and anywhere.
Even some tool applications do not match social features.
For example, the travel navigation application AutoNavi Map, users can create new groups or join existing groups in "APP-Message", for group services, AutoNavi Map said that "it is to provide users with multiple people can form a single/multi-group at the same time, location sharing, sharing route and location information, and jointly going to the same destination driving navigation service function".
Gu Hong believes that it is very rare for apps on the market without social functions, and even if it is a "speed version APP" with simplified functions, it has not completely simplified social functions. For example, the Vibrato Express Edition, although there are no rich chat functions such as audio and video calls and red envelopes carried by the normal version, the main page still retains the "Message" function, allowing users to initiate chats.
In Gu Hong's view, through group chat, merchants and consumers can be better connected, "on the one hand, consumers can enjoy merchant discounts through group chat, and can also communicate with merchants and other consumers through group chat; on the other hand, businesses can interact with consumers through group chat, which is conducive to store operation." ”
"The most fundamental reason is to increase user stickiness and increase user activity." Gu Hong told Burning Finance that although application developers will not take it for granted that the social functions on the line can bring good-looking data, but the social functions must be there, and the complex points can be engaged in some circles, group chats, otherwise the most basic will also provide a chat function, "One is to facilitate the contact between users to improve user activity, and the other is to get more user information through social networking, which is conducive to big data analysis." ”
Social also has to look at WeChat
"A good product is a run-out."
In the past, Zhang Xiaolong's limited external speeches, "use up and go" has appeared frequently. According to Zhang Xiaolong's "product tool theory", the biggest utility of the tool is to allow users to use it with the highest efficiency and leave as soon as possible, rather than the so-called "sticking" customers, so "running out" has also become WeChat's product concept.
"If we have to make users stay here longer, it means that social efficiency is lower." Once he gets lower and finds a place that makes him more socially productive, he may have to go there. Therefore, Zhang Xiaolong believes that taking a stay time as a reflection of the value of an APP is very contrary to his understanding of the Internet.
Although Zhang Xiaolong added to the "use up and go" afterwards, "In fact, I forgot to say the second half of the sentence, and I will come back after leaving." However, even so, looking at the entire Internet, there may be no second application besides WeChat that dares to say, "Our product concept is to run out and go." "More often, they are racking their brains about how to increase user stickiness and extend user time.
However, even if the major apps match the social features, the social features may not have an immediate effect.
"I forgot how to open the spelling small circle function, until one day my colleague asked me how the xx fruit I bought from Pinduoduo tasted, I did not react, I was in a state of 'shopping naked' for a long time, and any goods bought in Pinduoduo will be automatically shared and seen by friends." A Pinduoduo user bluntly said that he did not understand the original intention of "spelling small circles", "I later turned off the function of spelling small circles." ”
Figure / Respectively, the douyin chat interface,
Little Red Book group chat interface, AutoNavi map group chat interface
Source / Screenshot of Burning Finance
In July 2021, Meituan also conducted an internal test of "rice circle" for some cities, and the entrance was located at the top of the "Meituan APP - News - Top", and the "rice circle" was equivalent to the "circle of friends" of Meituan's takeaway. According to Meituan, after the user opens the function, the takeaway order will be shared to the "rice circle" in the form of product dynamics after the payment is successful.
However, today, it has been more than half a year since the internal test of the "rice circle", and the "rice circle" has not been opened in the whole area. Meituan customer service responded to this, saying that "the early stage of the rice circle only conducts internal testing for some cities, and the relatives who have not yet shown the entrance are patiently waiting for oh, and they will be online immediately ~ ~ "
Also not attracting too much attention from users is the "group chat function" of Little Red Book.
Little Red Book blogger Li Shuangshuang immediately created a group chat after learning of the "group chat function", initially to create his own fan base, but a few months later, the number of fans in the group was very few, "I also set the group chat on the home page, but in fact there are few fans into the group, the group activity is very poor, basically I sent the work content message, in addition to no interaction." ”
"UU, please enter the micro-X group, open the micro-X, and scan the code into the group." This is the Weibo food blogger Xiao Xiong in the Weibo group issued a group announcement, Xiao Xiong told Burning Finance, Weibo is his main position of content distribution, accumulated a lot of fans, recently in the attempt to do e-commerce business, so in Weibo for their own WeChat group diversion, "Although everyone also likes to visit Weibo, but still through WeChat to manage customers more conveniently." The same is the group chat, my WeChat selling group chat can be talked hot on weekdays, and Weibo's fan base basically does not speak. ”
Netizens have also said that they have made friends on other platforms, and finally become WeChat friends. "For me, other platforms are basically suitable places for hook-up chat, and the ultimate goal is to 'add a WeChat'." Chen Nini believes that compared with WeChat, chats on other platforms often stop abruptly because of the delay in receiving information, "Like I recently logged in to Tieba and found that a landlord who sent me a private message last month only replied to my message last week, and I only gave him a message back every other week." ”
Indeed, while there are many social applications where the Internet can be socialized, none of them can be compared to WeChat. In January 2022, WeChat did not disclose WeChat-related user data at the WeChat Open Class, but in the 2021 WeChat Open Class, Zhang Xiaolong announced several sets of data: 1.09 billion users openEd WeChat every day, 330 million people made video calls, 780 million people entered the circle of friends, and 120 million people published the circle of friends.
Although the grasshopper is small, can it shake the tree?
It is a fact that WeChat's national APP status has not been shaken so far, and many platforms that try to divide WeChat traffic are far from the volume of WeChat, but this does not mean that WeChat can sit back and relax.
QuestMobile data shows that during the Spring Festival holiday in the past two years, mobile social, short videos, mobile games and online videos accounted for most of the user's time, and the total use time ratio was as high as 71.5%. Among them, the growth of short videos is the most obvious, and the average daily use time of Douyin has reached 101.5 minutes.
Photo / WeChat, QQ in 2017-2021
Compared with the number of monthly active people on the whole network of Douyin
Source / Analysys Qianfan
Whether from the perspective of user usage time or user scale data, WeChat, which ranks first, has the problem of insufficient growth compared with the latter.
The same is QuestMobile data, in the China Mobile Internet 2021 Q3 TOP 10 subdivision industry user scale, although WeChat-based instant messaging is still ranked first with 109406 million MAU, but the year-on-year growth rate is only 1.6%, while the year-on-year growth rate of integrated e-commerce, which ranks second in user size, is 9%.
QQ's monthly active account number and other data are also declining year by year, in addition to the young people who actively choose QQ because of too many WeChat acquaintances who have been exposed, QQ has not even been able to retain the old users of the past, even if many people's youth is closely linked to QQ. For WeChat, the possibility of encountering QQ situations in the future is not ruled out.
On the one hand, with the rise of the concept of metaversity, it means that the scenes and carriers of social networking will undergo earth-shaking changes in the future, and WeChat is just incompatible with the "meta-universe". The social metacosm means that in the social scene, it is a virtual world parallel to reality and online in real time. The "virtual" is never a WeChat label, for WeChat, the real identity tied to acquaintances is a sharp weapon that can call on the social field. "What can beat WeChat will certainly not be the second WeChat, but a new species." Product Manager Zhou Said.
On the other hand, WeChat itself has a strong sense of crisis. Since September 2021, "interconnection" has become a hot word on the Internet, and under the guidance of the relevant business departments of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the "information island" era of the mobile Internet for nearly a decade has been broken, followed by the era of "interconnection". For Tencent, which holds the traffic pool, the impact of "tearing down the wall" is obvious.
"Alibaba and ByteDance are bound to be happy, especially for Alibaba without social genes, interconnection means that WeChat's traffic advantage is no longer limited to Tencent's ecology, and Taobao can also enjoy its success." Zhou believes that for Alibaba, interconnection can be divided into huge traffic intercepted by WeChat, "For WeChat, the traffic will inevitably be diluted." ”
In addition, under the general trend of decentralization and verticalization, although the huge WeChat can intercept traffic, it does not necessarily control traffic. In the context of interconnection and user self-help choice, many applications with social functions are also eating WeChat traffic.
Under the attack of the inside and outside, WeChat should also think of contingency measures, whether it is the application attack of major social functions, or the threat of the "meta-universe" that is rampant, or even the background of the interconnected Internet era, the big tree of WeChat has to shake a few times.
*Captions and some of the accompanying images are from Visual China. In the text, Chen Nini, Gu Hong, Seed Seed, Xiao Xiong, and Zhou Case are pseudonyms.
*Disclaimer: In no event shall the information herein or the opinions expressed herein constitute investment advice to any person.