A new generation of social war has begun. Who will shake WeChat?

In today's society, except for verification codes and notifications, short messages in mobile phones have basically been replaced by WeChat.

Wechat is a way of life. As Zhang Xiaolong pointed out, today's WeChat is not restricted by other systems such as iOS and Android. It is a mature ecosystem, with super-high user market, ultra-high frequency, social relationship chain, unified account system, reading habits, payment habits and shopping habits. It can be called a "hardware" national application in the era of smart phones.

But at the same time, because it is to make products for more than one billion people, just like the Spring Festival Evening on New Year's Eve, it is difficult for people to adjust their views. Every iteration of WeChat will cause a commotion, so doing nothing may be the safest, which will lead to the update speed of WeChat. Will be slightly slower than other social software.

However, in this era, the rapid changes in the needs of products and users have made everyone in the Internet industry feel a great sense of crisis. There is no forever number one here. As long as users are not interested, you will be eliminated.

Go all out to catch up

QQ of life iteration.

In fact, since the birth of WeChat, more and more netizens have moved their social positions from QQ to WeChat. Tencent's 20021Q3 financial report revealed that the monthly active accounts of WECHAT and WeChat increased by 4. 1% year-on-year to 126 billion, more than twice that of QQ. If WeChat becomes the first national application under the premise of infinitely approaching the upper limit of Internet users in China, QQ, as a social product spanning 80, 90 and 00, will still be among the best after 23 years of ups and downs, and it will be even more difficult. Especially in recent years, the influence of QQ among young people should not be underestimated. The Report on Social Behavior of Users after 00 shows that half of QQ members are after 00; 67% of the remarks made every day come from the post-00 generation. After 95, it accounts for more than 25% of QQ users.

In catering to young people's preferences, QQ can definitely afford the "most" effort. Compared with WeChat 10, the big version is updated only eight times. QQ can be updated once a month, or even four times a month when there are many times.

Under the general trend of the meta-universe last year, the QQ show, which was once offline, returned in the name of "Super QQ Show". This new product also has the interface of kneading dough and changing clothes, but the significance of "super" lies in several other brand-new functions. After the user completes the basic settings, the system will guide him to the "QQ nest", complete the dressing of the "QQ nest", and even buy furniture, decorate, and chat at other people's homes. ...

In addition, in the lower right corner of the main interface of Super QQ Show, the "Paradise" function was also launched. After clicking, there are many party games besides My Nest and Walking with the Same Style, and the prototypes of these games are mostly popular items in the market. In addition, there is the "Space" of Binhai Music Square, which is a public chat room dedicated to socializing or holding concerts. Users can see who entered the room at any time and what was said in it, which is somewhat similar to the concept of virtual live broadcast. On the big screen of the indoor stage in the center of Paradise Square, users can also see many Q-version images of Mei Tian's game characters.

Only in the testing stage, Super QQ Show showed terrible cross-departmental resource integration ability. QQ's traffic and social links, Tencent's video content, and Mei Tian's IP…… ....................................................................................................................................................... From a longer-term perspective, Super QQ Show can be said to have added various functions that a new generation of young people like, which undoubtedly provides a broad interface for Tencent's future, and users will be attracted, retained and even directly use the image of Super QQ Show, and enter a broader meta-universe in the future.

At the same time, at the beginning of this year, the mobile QQ dynamic page is testing the "companion" function in gray scale, which can randomly match strangers' chats according to interest tags. This is another new function of QQ iteration after "Super QQ Show", which is equivalent to the continuation of the function of "Extended Column" (covering 12 sections such as Voice Party, Couple Jump and Constellation Matching). QQ has never given up reshaping the unfamiliar social section, and is also trying to embrace young people of every era.

When people marvel at the speed and amazing volume of the rise of WeChat, the advantage of QQ is that after 23 years of inheritance, it still iterates in time, making users feel better, transferring files faster, running in small steps and persevering. It's hard to say that such a QQ can't win the final victory.

A novice trying to overtake in a corner.

Competitors are eyeing up

Under the trump card of QQ and WeChat, Tencent's dominance in the social field lasted for nearly ten years. However, the emergence of Tik Tok has broken this situation, and it has also given people new hope. The sudden emergence of short videos, on the one hand, occupies the attention and time of netizens, on the other hand, social intrusion is becoming more and more obvious. For example, fan groups, friend exchanges and video comments are all interactive scenes.

When the number of product users, frequency of use and penetration rate exceed a certain level, the social relationship chain will be copied or even migrated. Once such a platform appears, it means that the pattern is broken. This is the case with Tik Tok, especially the craze for hypercube gels. On February 1 1 day, gel, which was still in the beta stage less than a month after its launch, rushed to the top of the AppStore for free, and even pushed WeChat, which had been dominating the list before, off the throne with the first download. Some young people changed their WeChat avatars into gel avatars, leaving their id and friends on multiple platforms. Gel is very popular with young people.

Not only gel, Baidu also released the metacosmic product "Xirang" from 65438 on February 27th last year. Although the product polishing at this stage is still in a relatively primary stage, the social blueprint of Baidu it carries has already begun to emerge.

In addition, many virtual social applications are covered with high-concept shells, such as ZEPETO and ZAO. ZEPETO focuses on 3D face kneading. Users can upload selfies, and then ZEPETO can convert them into avatars. They can also adjust their avatars according to their own aesthetics. ZAO is characterized by "changing face". Users can make expression packs after uploading their personal avatars, and they can also appear in movies and TV programs in the form of changing their faces. On these two platforms, users can also complete social functions such as "taking photos" with friends through their own images.

The fiery concept of the meta-universe and the personalized social needs of Z generation users have brought vitality to the social track for strangers. Only now that some people have a share and formed a network effect can they gradually expand their influence, from small to large. Perhaps it is not impossible to rely on the new upsurge of the meta-universe.

At the same time, in the social interaction of strangers, strangers, exploration and souls are always eyeing, there is no oligopoly in the market, and users are extremely interested in the new platform. The new platform can further explore the social no-man's land of strangers with new scenes, new technologies and new ways of playing.

Recruits and veterans are secretly waiting for the next market explosion point, and the contest between victory and defeat will be fierce and lasting.