Ask China: How immersive is WeChat into your lifestyle?
> "You can use WeChat to buy a movie ticket, check the air quality, pay for street food, publish articles, report an incident to the police, release an app, order groceries, connect to Wi-Fi, check the queue time for a restaurant, open an online store, add money to your phone plan, donate to charity, find a lost child, and become an internet celebrity. When I’m in China, I can’t imagine living without WeChat for a day. And I’m not unusual."
Now WeChat is really big and I understand that. But is the above an exaggeration or do most Chinese actually spend upto 30% of their smartphone time within the super-app. Have been getting mixed reviews from my Chinese friends.
What do you(and people around you) use it for?
11 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 35.3 ms ] threadI would bet that most people use WeChat for it's social stuff (IMing or doing 'timeline' stuff) apart from the "novelty" stuff like the ones listed.
If we think of WeChat as Instagram, FB and IM all in one where those aren't the "main apps" for just that, I think 30% seems extremely low.
Obviously I am not Chinese, nor do I live there. And my only experience with WeChat is a couple of months in Malaysia (where it is the main client).
Where I live LINE is the big app, it includes similar stuff like paying etc but I never saw/heard of anyone using them. It is mainly IMing and using the timeline. But we've got FB/IG as well so people use those. But I still think LINE have more than 30% of the peoples attention based on what I see.
The pitfalls for asking HN users. =) On a more serious note, could you elaborate on the LINE users around you- specifically in terms of what they use it for?
Real estate agents in China use WeChat that way, too.
check the air quality - This isn't built into the client, but via accounts you can add. Inferior to a dedicated app which almost everyone has
pay for street food - Done, but scanning a QR code and getting confirmation that's been scanned is more time consuming than handing over a 10 Yuan note and getting change
publish articles - Done. There's also a microblog feature which has far surpassed Weibo, the twitter-like app
report an incident to the police - Not done but see the usefulness. Non-emergency things reported as text could really help police workflow here
release an app - Done. Banking stuff too, and a lot more is coming in 3rd party financial services
order groceries - Done, kinda. Order lunch and get it delivered.
connect to Wi-Fi - Confused. The phone connects to WiFi, WeChat uses the phone's WiFi connection
check the queue time for a restaurant - Not done.
open an online store - Not done. Do you mean use the microblog function to advertise wares; that's common? various middleware linking to escro services etc?
add money to your phone plan - Done. In most cities, all utility bills can be paid.
donate to charity - Well, you can donate/send funds to anyone
find a lost child - Not done
become an internet celebrity - Not done
WeChat has achieved a critical mass surpassing even QQ (they're made by the same company). Not through absolute destruction; QQ is still big on both phone and PC while the PC app for WeChat is limited compared to PC-based QQ.
I mentioned banking above. While WeChat offers payment services at the moment, it's seen by many as a toy compared to AliPay. This will change over the next 6-12 months as behind the scenes Tencent are courting banks (and others I'm sure, but banking sector is my thing) about advantages WeChat offers, for example tracking success of marketing campaigns - instant 'big data' feedback.
Some more things I use WeChat for, almost exclusively.
Office circle - Everyone in my office has to be in a circle where office announcements are made, from at the weekend 'is anyone in, I forget my access card' to sharing teambuilding photos/video instantly to starting a chat between a few people by creating a new group chat
International calls - Video call a colleague in Singapore? Use WeChat and office WiFi. Free and easy.
Helpline - Instant texting, send pictures, video, chat. No 'run in background, share screen' function as far as I know yet, only share via camera. Not technically hard given everything else.
Events - Subscribe to accounts offering new events. I have no idea why Tencent have not yet added calendar functionality.
Discount cards/offers - Shared socially or from subscribed accounts
Lucky money - Like sending money, but randomly distributed. Common for teambuilding
LinkedIn/Facebook - Integrates these services on a very basic level
Other stuff that it does:
Stickers
Look Around - feature for people nearby that are bored and want to chat/hook up;
Shake - for people 1000s of km away that are bored and want to chat/hook up;
Bottle - feature so if you are bored and want to chat/get something off your chest/hook up you can throw a bottle and someone can reply.
--
tl/dr At least 30% of smartphone time in China is on WeChat. Often in travel time. But probably not chatting. Reading a post/posts, watching a video someone linked, browsing online shops, it's just in a massive payment & contact-linked type iFrame.
A: "What's the first thing you do when you wake up?" B: "Open my eyes" A: "The second?" B: "Check WeiXin."
In some restaurants, you have to scan their printed WeChat QR code and follow their official account, before the wifi will connect. I'm not sure how it works, but I've used it a couple of times, and it was a smooth process.
"open an online store - Not done. Do you mean use the microblog function to advertise wares; that's common? various middleware linking to escro services etc?"
You can build a store as an HTML5 app, embedded within a channel. The store will get access to identity and payments via WeChat's APIs. There are also sellers that use their regular account. They publish new items in their 'Moments' feed, which anyone connected o them can browse. If you want to buy, you send them a message with your address, and send them a person-to-person payment via WeChat payments.
"WeChat has achieved a critical mass surpassing even QQ (they're made by the same company)."
I remember there being a very smooth migration process. When I started using WeChat, I was quickly able to add my existing QQ contacts. So I just stopped using QQ.
"Office circle"
Yup. I'm in a few of those informal groups with colleagues. Also there's a group for people that live in our apartment block.
"International calls - Video call a colleague in Singapore? Use WeChat and office WiFi."
Yup. If one of you is in China, then WeChat quality might be better than FaceTime.
"Stickers"
I use these pretty often. I used to think sticker were just for young people.
- Blogging platform? Yes. there are public accounts for enterprises and individuals to publish articles or videos.
- BBS? Yes. there are groups to connect every social circles for you. Every circles. Groups for little family(wife and children), bigger family(plus my parents), even bigger family(plus my brothers and sisters)... Groups for classmates of primary schools, secondary school and high school and universities. Groups for various working circles, groups for various special interests circles.
- Twitter or Instagram or Periscope? Yes. There is friends circle for it. I have thousands of connections on Wechat, and tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, hundreds of thousands of followers on Weibo. But more likes or comments (and from guys I know and real) on WeChat.
- And services you can imagine: Tickets for films, taxi hailing, food or flower delivery, online shopping...
I rarely bring cash or credit cards with me these days. I can pay nearly for everything everywhere with WeChat.
WeChat is for mobile phone as Windows for PC or browser for Web. Actually much more than that.
In China, you can find QR codes everywhere. And the first response for that is open WeChat.
Yes. I'm not Chinese, but live in China. 80% of my smartphone time is in:
- Gmail
- Yarn (an HN reader)
- WeChat
- Uber
Most Chinese people don't read HN, or use email for non-work purposes. You can hail a car in WeChat, so they don't need the Uber app, either.