As one of the most popular social apps in China, WeChat has dominated the Chinese market for eight years with over 1 billion daily active users. On Jan 9th, 2017, it introduced a new major feature — “WeChat Mini-programs,” the lightweight applications that run inside WeChat. Given the massive scale of WeChat users and the growing speed, 200 million users are active on WeChat mini-programs every day as of August 2018.
While the mini-programs are now so viral, I decided to plan one with my friend to see if we can find something interesting. And we’d like to share our findings with you that are also interested in the WeChat programs initiative. Covered four main points about WeChat mini-programs down below:
· What exactly are WeChat mini-programs?
· When did WeChat mini-programs start to get viral?
· Who can create a WeChat mini program?
· What types of mini-programs are more popular?
What exactly are WeChat mini-programs?
WeChat mini-programs are actually like add-ins in WeChat, a.k.a. the embedded app or sub-application. Unlike usual native mobile Apps, WeChat mini-programs requires no download, no install but they only live inside WeChat.
To access a specific mini-program in WeChat, you can search it by the name, get it from sharing, or scan QR code somewhere you see (QR codes are used more common from offline). Each mini-program’ size is no more than 2 MB, which makes it load faster than a native mobile App and requires a lot less development effort.
For those who are not familiar with WeChat mini-programs, here are a few examples:
When did mini-programs start to get viral?
Although Tencent released the WeChat mini-programs initiative in the very beginning of 2017, it becomes viral by a mini-game called “Tiao yi tiao” (means “Jump jump”) in December 2017. (Mini-game is one category in WeChat mini-programs) This mini-game is very simple to play — tab on the screen and release to make the little black piece from one block to another; the duration of each tab varies from the different distance between 2 blocks, and you gain scores from successful jumps. You can also see your score ranking among your friends on WeChat. The game has attracted 170 million DAU as of Jan 15th, 2018.
With this game’s explosive popularity, the WeChat mini-programs started to get prevalent. In just one year, WeChat mini-programs now covers more than 200 industries, such as e-commerce, food delivery, and real estate.
Who can create a WeChat mini program?
As an open source platform, anyone can create a WeChat mini-program. (It’s free to develop individual’s program. If you need a mini-program for your business, you need to pay 300RMB, about 45 dollars for the business account authorization.)
To code a mini-program, you will need to write it in a specific language WXML and WXSS (a JavaScript framework developed by the company.) instead of HTML and CSS. (See mini-program doc)
(WXML stands for WeiXin Markup Language, and WXSS stands for WeiXin Stylesheets. WeChat spells “WeiXin” in Mandarin.)
Even if you don’t know how to code, you can still build a mini-program with the help of templates (WeChat does not provide templates. I saw many free template packages shared on GitHub.) There’re also lots of startups that provide building mini-programs service and paid templates. (Even though the mini-program initiative is just two years old, it already creates lots of business opportunities. Developing mini-programs service is only one of them.)
What types of mini-programs are more popular?
According to the user report of the WeChat mini-programs released by Tencent in Jan 2019, the types of mini-programs that are more popular among users include mini-games, lifestyle, news, e-commerce & retail, travel, tools at help increase productivity, entertainment.
With high compatibility, mini-programs that meet the basic requirements of living tend to be easier to get known, such as food delivery, bicycle sharing, travel or hotel as they are more like what Allen Zhang, the WeChat’s founder claimed his philosophy of a good product — “People use it and go.”
As the latest version shows all the enhance of mini-program, it’s clear that it would be the focus of WeChat. WeChat also plans a recommendation system based on friends’ reviews, to help people discover products. Thus, mini-programs with good quality & brand would be more significant for startups.
About “People use it and go,” it’s not like that the WeChat product team ignores the user stickiness and let people use it then throw it away.
In fact, a good product should help people complete their tasks with the least time and effort. And when people need to solve the same problem again, they will think about using it immediately.
And that how “Use it and go” makes people come back again.
