12/19/2023 0 Comments Wechat logo from behindWeChat is what media scholars call “ elemental”: inconspicuous and nonintrusive, yet pervasive and as fundamental as the natural elements, just like air, water and clouds. They give users the feeling that WeChat has disappeared or merged into the environment. These miniprograms appear to be ephemeral, diffusive and almost atmospheric. They can be opened by swiping down the screen. Miniprograms are stored in a hidden panel at the top of the screen. Screen capture by Jianqing Chen, CC BY-ND WeChat has a panel of miniprograms that users pull down from the top of the screen. Users can simply search in the app or scan a QR code to open a miniprogram, skipping the cumbersome processes of installing and uninstalling new apps. Miniprograms are embedded into WeChat as third-party developed sub-applications, and they provide users with easy access to a large range of services – like hailing a taxi, ordering food, buying train tickets and playing games – without leaving WeChat. The design of WeChat miniprograms makes Zhang’s idea clear. A low demand for time and effort is key to bringing users back into the app without exhausting them. This might seem paradoxical – if WeChat is trying to get its users to leave the app as fast as possible, how can it maintain its internet empire? Typically an app’s popularity is assessed based on how long users spend in the app, and users’ attention is the scarce resource various digital platforms fight for.īut Zhang claims that in order to sustain users’ daily engagement with the app in the long run, it’s important to let them leave the app as fast as possible. Zhang emphasized that one of WeChat’s design principles is to “get users out of the app as fast as possible,” meaning to reduce the amount of time users spend in WeChat. Screen capture by Jianqing Chenīut the lack of flashy, attention-grabbing features is actually one of WeChat’s intentional design philosophies, as WeChat’s founder and chief developer Allen Xiaolong Zhang made clear in his annual public speeches in 20. WeChat’s splash screen is visually clean and has been unchanged for a decade. The app forms a relatively closed social space, since WeChat users can see only what their contacts post, unlike apps like Weibo or TikTok, where celebrities amass millions of followers. WeChat rarely changes its logo to celebrate holidays or sends admin notifications to users. A counterintuitive design philosophyĭespite WeChat’s status as an everything app, it’s one of the least notable and attractive apps on my smartphone. This dream of an internet empire is perhaps what is so enticing for tech leaders like Musk. This “everythingness” leaves little room for rival companies to achieve similar dominance and turns every tap or swipe on a user’s smartphone into something a big tech company can profit from. It forms a gigantic digital hub that, as German philosopher and media theorist Peter Sloterdijk once described, “has drawn inwards everything that was once on the outside.” The app creates an all-encompassing and ever-expanding media ecosystem that influences users’ daily activities. Its “everythingness” refers to its near omnipresence and omnipotence in everyday life. In this sense, WeChat is indeed an everything app. Although WeChat is an everything app in the sense of being a digital hub for over a billion users, the app’s design is intentionally grounded in a more nuanced and philosophical meaning of the word “everything” than you might expect.Ī smartphone displays WeChat’s group-messaging function. WeChat’s inconspicuousness on my phone screen is no accident. I believe it’s ordinary rather than special, lacking distinctive features compared with the other popular apps I studied for my current book project about Chinese touchscreen media. But, in contrast to Musk’s enthusiasm, I don’t think WeChat is something to write home about. I’m a Chinese digital media scholar, and I’ve used WeChat since 2012. What’s it like to use WeChat? How has WeChat become “everything” in China? Would it be possible to replicate the app’s success in the U.S.? But for many American users unfamiliar with WeChat, a train of questions followed. Musk promoted his super app project by referring to the Chinese all-in-one app WeChat. When the X logo replaced Twitter’s blue bird, the internet buzzed with heated discussions about just what it would mean for X to be an everything app. Elon Musk’s vision of Twitter, now rebranded as X, as an
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