WeChat Reading Product Analysis Report

This article would like to take WeChat Reading as the research object, analyze its product functions, product positioning, target users, product market and some suggestions for improvement, so that more people can appreciate the ingenuity of the product.

In the Internet age, the rapid spread of information allows us to know the hottest news and most talked-about events. Turning a deaf ear to the world outside and focusing on reading the books of sages seems out of place in today's information age. However, the emergence of WeChat Reading allows people to find a clear sea of ​​books in the vast ocean of information explosion. WeChat Reading is the first software that made me like reading. It broke my inherent impression that traditional reading software is full of fantasy and fairy tale novels. It is simply a breath of fresh air in reading software.

When our fragmented time is occupied by fresh and interesting short videos, snatched away by sensational real-time hot spots, and plundered by endless celebrity gossip, there is less and less time left for reading books. Light-hearted news has defeated obscure books, slow reading cannot keep up with the ever-changing short videos, low-key and steady writers are not as well-known as up-hosts with millions of fans. Can in-depth reading take root in the impetuous Internet? WeChat Reading gives a perfect answer.

The slogan of WeChat Reading, which is based on reading social networking, is to make reading no longer lonely. WeChat's huge user base has laid a good foundation for product social networking and also provided a high-quality channel for subsequent product operations. Reading books has raised the threshold for social interaction and created high-quality, in-depth social interaction. It shows that reading books among WeChat friends can not only increase the source of books but also promote social interaction among friends. Activities such as exchanging book coins by time, drawing unlimited cards by forming a team, and sharing unlimited cards by answering questions can increase user activity, enhance user stickiness, and cultivate good reading habits among users.

This article would like to take WeChat Reading as the research object, analyze its product functions, product positioning, target users, product market and some suggestions for improvement, so that more people can appreciate the ingenuity of the product.

1. Product Function Separation

This chapter mainly analyzes the product from five aspects: book acquisition, social interaction, reading interface, personal page and humanized design.

1. Obtaining Book Coins and Infinite Cards

Through various activities, users can earn book coins and unlimited cards in different ways, which can be used to purchase books and read all books for free. This can not only promote the product, but also enhance product stickiness and increase user enthusiasm.

2. Friends and Personalized Recommendations

Recommending books of interest to users based on their historical reading preferences can save users the trouble of finding books. The discovery page displays the books that your connected friends are reading in the form of cards, using books as a medium to promote social interaction while also avoiding single personalized book recommendations.

3. Collision of ideas and book reviews

Readers can express their thoughts on passages in the book and write a review after reading. Readers who share the same feelings about a passage can exchange ideas through thoughts and meet through words.

4. Reading rankings to motivate

By showing the reading time among friends through the reading rankings, the effect of motivation can be achieved. If users do not like to compare, they can also choose to close the reading rankings.

Figure 1: WeChat Reading Function Breakdown

2. Product Positioning

WeChat Reading is mainly designed to be a product that integrates reading and social interaction for users who love reading, so that reading is no longer lonely. The product uses books as a carrier to exchange ideas through ideas and book reviews in the books, thereby promoting social interaction. Readers who love writing book excerpts can express their inner feelings, users who prefer silence can understand other people's opinions, and readers who do not want to be disturbed can hide their thoughts. Readers with different preferences can all take root here.

The product has acquired a large number of users based on the relationship chain of WeChat friends, and has expanded its user base through activities such as teaming up to draw unlimited cards, sharing to obtain unlimited cards, and sharing to receive free books. While promoting social interaction, it also allows users to become the best advertisements to achieve viral growth in the number of users.

The product's unique reading time ranking list quantifies reading by displaying reading time. The ranking on the list induces readers' competitive mentality, prompting readers to increase reading time and improve product usage rate.

3. User Analysis

1. User Persona Map

Figure 2: WeChat Reading User Role Map

2. Target Users

Students who love reading and have social needs, as well as white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities.

Figure 3: Characteristics of WeChat Reading users; Source: iResearch

According to user data from iResearch Consulting, there are slightly more male than female users of WeChat Reading, and the age of users is mostly under 35 years old. Young user groups have a stronger desire for knowledge and social needs.

User segmentation dimensions:

• Region: First- and second-tier cities with relatively developed economy and culture and a strong cultural atmosphere
• Age: 18 to 35 years old, mostly students and white-collar workers
• Education: Above average education, focusing on the spiritual world
• Income: Upper middle class, with certain requirements for book quality and reading experience

Table 1: WeChat Reading User Profile

4. Market Analysis

As shown in Figure 4, the number of independent devices for WeChat Reading in March was close to 10 million, a month-on-month increase of 5.8%. Although the number of WeChat users is not as large as that of iReader, QQ Reader, etc., its month-on-month growth rate exceeded 5%, second only to Tomato Free Novels among many software.

When analyzing WeChat Reading, we searched for NetEase Wugou Reading, which is also based on reading and social networking. Although its number of users is less than that of WeChat Reading, its minimalist design and social integration have a certain overlap with WeChat Reading. Therefore, this time we mainly analyze the four competing products: iReader, QQ Reading, Tomato Free Novels and NetEase Wugou Reading.

Figure 4: Ranking of reading products in March 2020; Source: iResearch

Table 2: Functional analysis of various reading software

All five types of reading products have basic reading and listening functions, but each has its own characteristics.

• The fresh and simple style and classic published books of NetEase Wugu Reading and WeChat Reading are designed to attract readers who have high requirements for reading quality.
• QQ Reading mainly promotes online novels, and increases user activity through support and check-ins in the book club circle. The book club activity list encourages readers to vote for books, thereby enhancing user stickiness.
• iReader has a complete range of book content, from published books, online novels, comics to audiobooks. It has all kinds of books. The book circle forms a discussion area, providing a platform for increasing reader participation.
• Tomato Free Novels mainly promotes free reading of novels, but there are many advertisements during the reading process. It allows users to earn profits by watching advertising videos and earning coins and withdrawing them, which seizes the user's mentality of getting the best deal.

1. Simple and elegant WeChat reading

WeChat Reading has a simple style. The books recommended based on reading history are displayed in the form of cards with only four book covers, so that users' attention will not be distracted by the exaggerated recommendations.

Recommendations for books that friends are reading are also in the form of cards, with one book recommended at a time. The interface has a lot of white space and no book advertisements, allowing users to choose without interference.

By answering questions to win points and exchanging them for book coins and other small games, reading becomes less monotonous and boring while also allowing readers to receive rewards, thus forming a virtuous circle.

The game "Daily Answer: Share Unlimited Cards" sets up a mechanism for resurrecting by watching ads, hiding ads in the game, which can both avoid user disgust and allow for advertising implantation.

Teaming up to share unlimited cards allows users to become promoters and publicists of the product, and invisibly makes users the product operators.

The ideas and reviews in the book can enable readers to evaluate the book objectively, deepen communication among readers, and make reading no longer lonely.

2. iReader with its massive resources

Since its establishment in 2008, iReader has been deeply involved in the field of Internet reading and owns more than 500,000 high-quality digital copyrights of books. At the same time, the product supports reading formats such as EBK3/TXT/UMD/EPUB/CHM/PDF, providing users with more reading options.

The bookstore provides different categories of books for different readers, such as boys, girls, VIPs, free readers, etc., and provides exquisite picture and text recommendations in the recommendation column, allowing readers to fall in the sea of ​​books and immerse themselves in the dazzling books.

The audiobooks are listed out to form a column. There are rich resources of audiobooks. Compared with the mechanical AI reading, the human voice reading is full of emotion, and the background music based on the plot and context makes listening to books no longer boring.

The content of the book also supports readers to write down their ideas and marks the number of ideas so that readers will not miss out on hot discussions in the book.

Each book has a book circle where readers can post their thoughts and reviews. The product also offers tasks such as completing tasks to receive benefits to increase user activity.

3. QQ Reading for Books

QQ Reading is backed by China Literature Group, with up to 10 million books and many well-known online writers. The product mainly promotes online novels. Readers can post comments in the book club and check in to support their favorite books. By supporting books and authors, it helps to form a book/author fan effect, allowing novel authors to more intuitively feel the enthusiasm of book lovers and attract well-known writers to join QQ Reading.

To encourage user creation, QQ Reading has held various essay competitions to allow more talented readers to become writers and provide high-quality works for the product.

The product also has a video reading module, which introduces the content of the book through short videos, making it more vivid and lively.

4. Tomato Novel: Earn Money by Reading Books

Tomato Novels mainly promotes free novels. You can read the entire novel for free without activating VIP. However, there are many advertisements interspersed in the pages during the reading process. After watching the video advertisement, no advertisements will appear within 30 minutes. Readers can get a cash reward of 29 yuan by inviting friends, and the reading time can also be exchanged for gold coins. Different from the rewards of other reading software, its gold coins can be withdrawn, and cash can also be withdrawn by completing tasks in the welfare area.

The shortcoming of the product is that there are relatively few books published, mainly online novels. Users who do not have high requirements for book quality can earn gold coins by reading, and readers who do not mind advertisements can also read novels for free. Its target users are not white-collar workers in first- and second-tier cities who work at a fast pace and value time like gold, but readers in small cities who have more free time and do not read for the purpose of acquiring knowledge.

5. The literary and fresh NetEase Wugu Reading

The slogan of NetEase Wugu Reading is to read for one hour every day, and users have one hour of free book reading time every day. By emphasizing reading time, it helps users develop a daily reading habit, and daily signing in to receive snail shells for book purchases can increase user stickiness. The desk adopts a minimalist design, and the blank area allows readers to focus on books without distractions.

The shared reading area designed for social interaction allows users to participate in various topics, view followers' updates, and promote interactive communication among users. Each book can be initiated for shared reading and joined in a book reading group, which can not only expand social circles but also encourage users to form good reading habits.

The paid submission of the reading reward program allows users to produce high-quality content, which can make up for the lack of book copyrights.

A comprehensive analysis and comparison of various reading apps shows that the product positioning of WeChat Reading is similar to that of NetEase Wuniu Reading, which aims to create a social and reading platform, and the product style tends to be simple. WeChat Reading is backed by WeChat. It has gained a large number of users by forming reading teams to draw unlimited cards, and avoids single personalized recommendations by recommending books that friends are reading. NetEase Wugou Reading seems to focus on social interaction among strangers, initiating shared reading based on books to help users find like-minded book friends.

iReader and QQ Reader entered the mobile reading market early, accumulated rich book resources and creators, and both have ink screen readers (iReader and QQ Pocket Reader). In order to attract more users, WeChat Reading has also cooperated with ink screen readers such as Kindle and BOOX to expand the user market.

The rise of Tomato Novel stems from its function of earning coins by reading and inviting friends to withdraw cash. It allows users to read novels for free by watching advertisements, meeting the needs of users who have plenty of spare time but are unwilling to pay. The target users of Tomato Novel are different from those of WeChat Reading. The fact that Tomato Novel has more users than WeChat Reading may be due to the different target user bases, and the competitive relationship between the two is relatively weak.

5. Product function optimization

Figure 5: Suggestions for improving WeChat Reading

1. Social

Requirement background: When reviewing book ideas, there are too many paragraphs in the book that spark discussion, which makes people feel very messy and unfocused. For users who don’t want to be disturbed by ideas, there is a lack of sense of participation.

Optimization suggestions:

• Add a question module so that readers can ask questions about the content of the book and increase the topicality of the reading.
• Readers can add answers under questions to enhance interactive communication.

Functional design details:

• Added a question function in the upper right corner of the book introduction page. Click to enter the question discussion area
• The discussion area can sort questions by time/popularity, and readers can raise questions and add answers
• The answer area can be set up with likes, comments, and forwarding functions

Click on a question to view other users' answers, add answers, and interact with the answerers. The answers will be displayed synchronously in your personal updates.

Demand background: When checking friends' ideas, some friends post dozens of ideas a day, which is too high a frequency. The ideas of some friends who don’t often express their thoughts are easily covered up, affecting the user experience. If you unfollow friends who like to express their ideas, it will affect the relationship between friends.

Optimization suggestion: Add the function of blocking friends’ ideas

Functional design details: Add a function to hide the user's thoughts on a friend's homepage

Demand background: Among the friends who follow each other on WeChat Reading, there are many unfamiliar friends, and I follow them out of courtesy. When expressing ideas, some ideas may only be viewed by readers of the same book, and not by friends who follow each other. For example, if you open a book for private reading, you may not want your friends to see what you are reading, but your thoughts will still be seen.

Optimization suggestion: You can set your thoughts not to be synchronized to your personal dynamics

Functional design details: When publishing ideas, add the function of not displaying them on the personal homepage

2. Read

Demand background: Fast-paced office workers are under great psychological pressure and rarely have a long period of free time to sit down and read books of tens of thousands of words. The Internet is full of various articles that sell anxiety, which invisibly increases the psychological pressure. For them, they need texts that can relax them and relieve stress in a short period of time.

Optimization suggestions:

• Added daily poem feature. Poetry with simple but sentimental words can bring peace to the reader's mind. Short poems close to life can help people discover the beauty of life and forget their worries.
• Hold poetry competitions, encourage original authors to submit their works, and offer generous rewards.

Functional design details: A new daily poem is added to the card page, and a poem is pushed every day.

Demand background: Some of the books recommended by the cards have been read by friends or they are not interested in some of them. For example, boys like to read military novels, but girls don’t like to read them. Therefore, you want to block the books when flipping through the cards.

Optimization suggestion: Add "Not interested" and "Read" options to the card. After selecting them, the book will no longer appear.

Functional design details: Add a "Not Interested" button and a "Read" button below the recommended book card. For books you are not interested in, you can reduce the push of such books when making personalized recommendations.

3. Short videos

Demand background: The rapid rise of apps such as Tik Tok and Kuaishou proves that users are more easily attracted to fast-paced short videos. Lighthearted and cheerful videos can bring more pleasure to users than long books, thus squeezing out the reading time in fragmented time. Reading also requires shocking advertisements to make users have a strong desire for knowledge after watching the video. The video content of Infinite Readers introducing books on Infinite Reading Day is a bit bland, and the straightforward language may not be as infectious as a heated debate, lacking the ignition point.

Optimization suggestions:

Insert a short video into the card. The video content can show the style of the readers in the group, and make the reader in the video the spokesperson of the book.

For example, Dong Qing, who reads for an hour every night before going to bed, has an elegant and intellectual conversation that makes people feel like spring breeze. Wu Yishu, the talented woman with a scholarly air in "Chinese Poetry Competition", is a person who loves to study poetry and songs. Chen Ming, who debates with many scholars in "U Can U Bibi", also relies on extensive reading. The books you read will quietly change the reader's words and deeds. The process may be long, but it is worth it.

Functional design details:

Add a short video to the card - The Power of Books, and push a short video every day featuring famous people who love reading. For example, Chen Ming's wonderful debate and Dong Qing's interview full of golden sentences.

VI. Conclusion

WeChat Reading continues the minimalist style of WeChat. When various reading software are filled with dazzling novels in the bookstore, WeChat Reading still maintains a clean and refreshing interface. The product initially recommended books based on social connections among acquaintances. After reading certain books, it can expand social connections with strangers through channels such as ideas and book reviews. Strangers who share a common interest in reading can recommend books to each other after following each other. Personalized recommendations, recommendations from WeChat friends on what they are reading, and recommendations from book friends they met because of books, all three types of recommendations go hand in hand, avoiding the narrow selection caused by a single personalized recommendation.

A series of promotional activities such as forming a team to draw unlimited cards, answering questions to share unlimited cards, collecting likes to get unlimited cards, inviting friends to get unlimited cards, etc. allow users to become promoters of the product, which not only increases user stickiness but also allows the product to go viral.

Recently, the news that Tencent took over China Literature Group has been widely circulated. The new contract is very unfavorable to the contracted authors, and voices defending the rights of the authors have also appeared on the Internet. I hope that in the future WeChat Reading will be able to make the authors’ income public and transparent, so that readers can clearly understand where their paid funds go, and also create a high-quality writing platform for authors.

As a product novice, I can only provide some suggestions for improving product functions from the user's perspective. I hope WeChat Reading can keep the original intention of reading in mind and change the world with the power of words.

Author: Pineapple Sea

Source: Pineapple Sea