Take you to a detailed analysis of the current situation, problems and market of WeChat mini programs

1. Current Situation

In the past few days, everyone has been flooded with WeChat mini programs again. "Get" has exited the mini program, "Today's Toutiao" has suspended its service (has been restored), and various stock transactions Similar small programs have also suspended services at the request of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. If you don’t know about mini programs yet, you can read my previous essay about mini programs for some ideas.

However, what needs to be corrected is that only a small number of mini programs have been suspended. It is known that the mini program store has nearly 500 mini programs included. There are definitely many that have not been submitted. A large number of developers participate in the development of mini programs every day. Don't be fooled by the saying "everyone else has quit the mini program, so what are you doing?"

And Toutiao has now resumed mini program services.

2. Problems

So why does the above situation occur? The first to try something new are the first to quit? Let’s sort out the current problems of WeChat mini programs.

1. There are many bugs

This is a topic that has to be said. In order to launch a "subversive" mini program on the 10th anniversary of Apple's release, the mini program actually brought a lot of bugs online. Yes, even now, developers still encounter many problems. For ordinary developers, they are eager to fill in the pits, but for companies, these will be written down in the research report.

For large companies with sufficient manpower, they have dedicated people to participate in the development and maintenance of small programs; for small companies, they do not have enough manpower investment, and they may spend half of their time maintaining other platform products and the other half. It takes time to develop small programs. If you encounter a few small program bugs at this time, it will basically be too much to bear.

For example, if you have a takeout app online, all the ordering links are fine, but you just can’t pay when you pay. No matter how you order, you won’t be able to pay via WeChat and you can only watch the time. In the past, orders lapsed. This is basically a fatal blow to a product. Customers uninstall your APP and cannot pay using your mini program, so they can only find another store. However, the latest version of a certain takeaway applet has fixed this problem.

Therefore, for companies that do not have enough manpower, they need to be cautious when entering the trap.

2. Product positioning

"Get" is a product with content as the main body. Since it is mainly content, how do users know if you have updates? What about the content? We know that on APP, when you have new content, you will push messages to users, but in mini programs, this approach is dead. Moreover, when the mini program was launched, Zhang Xiaolong already said that the mini program is like a tool, you can leave after using it. So for a content-based application, do you expect users to leave after reading it?

I really don’t understand the launch of the mini program by “Today’s Toutiao”. Why should such a frequently used product be placed on the mini program? Let’s not talk about how you push major news. What about the hobbies of ordinary users? Make personalized recommendations? This is the most competitive thing in Toutiao. If these things are not available, what is the point of making a small program. I guess it's just used by technicians to practice their skills.

The above are just some of my thoughts. I think the most important thing for a product is product positioning. Mini programs are positioned as tools, and they recommend tool-type applications and mall-type applications. At the same time, the mini program also provides some data analysis services based on this, such as Event analysis (registration, viewing products, placing orders, payment), funnel analysis (viewing user conversion and loss in each step), etc. .

#Please analyze the significance of making small programs rationally and do not blindly follow the trend.

3. Security risks

On January 13, the China Securities Regulatory Commission was worried that financial mini-programs would involve customer privacy and security issues, and required financial mini-programs to only display products. , functions such as subscription, redemption, conversion, fixed investment, and account opening cannot be performed. Then this is very painful. You can only see the latest stock price and consultation on the mini program. If you want to trade, I’m sorry, you can jump to another link. We know that WeChat does not support external links, so okay, I have to Go back to the APP and conduct transactions.

Then the question is, I already have everything in the APP, why do I need mini programs? Therefore, many fund and securities mini programs have stopped serving them directly. However, it is estimated that the regulatory authorities only need to evaluate the security risks of this new thing, and only after the evaluation is completed can they determine whether other functions are still available.

3. Development market

With the withdrawal of these small programs, WeChat’s development strategy has also been questioned. I will talk about the small program development market purely from the perspective of a developer.

Before the opening of mini programs, WeChat mini program groups were all over the place. First, developers of ios and android joined the mini program development group, then PMs also joined, and then to the back row Those who work on PHP also joined in. The development cost of small programs is not high. You can basically use it by copying the code from the official documents, so everyone comes to work on it together.

However, this has also resulted in a relatively large development market. The development price of small programs is not expected to be very high, and in many existing products, small programs have become accessories.

4. Summary

After writing so much, there are actually two meanings. The first is product positioning. Whether your product meets the characteristics of tool products? If you are a content type, then It will be difficult to show off your skills in small programs.

The second is that the current mini program is still very imperfect and requires a large number of developers to fill in the gaps.

There are conflicts and combinations between mini programs and APPs. If you have a mini program and the user uninstalls the APP, then some users of your program will be lost. For the newly emerged WeChat mini-programs, there may still be some way to achieve monetization.

Can mini programs only replace mini programs? Can’t we use mini programs to attract traffic to the real APP? Can’t we use mini programs to attract traffic to public accounts?

Simply being able to develop small programs is basically useless. For example, if a large number of people working on iOS and Android run to develop small programs, the things you create can only run in WeChat and can only be used. Use the things provided by WeChat.

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