WeChat this year: 16 emoticons were quietly removed from the platform, and these functions will be gone forever...

In 2020, WeChat launched system emoticons once at the beginning and end of the year respectively. Each time, it became a hot topic and was hotly discussed by the whole nation.

But you may not have noticed that WeChat also removed a batch of emoticons this year, and several classic functions and programs also "disappeared" forever.

For example, the “so embarrassed” and “crazy” emojis that Tech Guy sent out very frequently, as well as the “shooting plane” game that he once loved, are now nowhere to be found on WeChat…

2020, they "end"

That’s right, while WeChat launched two rounds of new emojis, some emojis were also quietly replaced.

In addition to temporary emojis with festive attributes such as chicken and dog, several classic emojis have also been put in the black room, such as the following:

That’s right, these WeChat default emoticons, which have existed since the birth of WeChat and can be called “ancient living fossils”, were removed from the shelves without any warning.

Judging from the overall style of the current emoticons, it can be seen that WeChat is determined to "de-penguinize" and has only retained three penguin-image emoticons.

Look carefully at these disappeared emojis. If I hadn’t reminded you, would you have found them? Since they are unpopular emojis, it is inevitable that some space will be made for newcomers. Even in the emoji world, the replacement of the old with the new is so cruel...

If you look more closely, you will find that many classic functions have also been taken offline.

The closest one has the "deposit" function.

In mid-December 2020, a large number of financial platforms removed their internet deposit products, including Tencent Wealth Management. This is also a strong signal sent by the relevant departments to the market that the supervision of online financial products will be further strengthened in the future.

In addition to the removal due to "external forces", there are some functions that WeChat took the initiative to remove, such as "QQ Email Subscription" and "WeChat Shop".

In the middle of last year, WeChat successively removed these two functions, which were the predecessors of official accounts and WeChat Mini Stores, respectively. The latter is one of WeChat’s main features in 2021.

"QQ Email Subscription". Looking through its development history, you will find that many of its functions and concepts are still inherited by the current WeChat public account, of course, the latter has replaced and surpassed it.

The WeChat Store, which has been "hidden" in the plug-in entrance, has also withdrawn from the stage because WeChat will be upgraded to "WeChat Small Store" in 2021, which can be regarded as completing its own stage-by-stage historical mission.

In 2021, will WeChat become “TikTok”?

Now that “WeChat Mini Stores” have been introduced, let’s take a look at what WeChat will become this year.

At the end of 2020, WeChat changed "People Nearby" to "Live Broadcasts and People Nearby". At the same time, WeChat also launched the ability to reward with virtual props. Users can use WeChat beans to purchase virtual gifts on WeChat and use them to reward video account anchors during live broadcasts.

At present, the video account live broadcast is still in the grayscale testing stage and cannot support commercial functions such as rewards, bringing goods, and knowledge payment. However, it is not difficult to imagine that with the speed of video account iteration and update, this day will come sooner or later. In addition, the connection between public accounts and video accounts has deepened. Public accounts have enabled the video account internal testing function. Users can directly click on the card to jump to the video account interface while watching articles, and click on the account owner's avatar to enter the video account homepage. This has opened up a new path for public accounts that have difficulty in increasing fans and paid reading.

It can be seen from this that WeChat will focus on the layout of video accounts this year, and is also ambitious about live streaming and community group buying. WeChat will become more and more substantial from a social media, with short videos accounting for an increasingly large proportion, and will also become the most important link in Tencent's ecological chain.