WeChat made a major change to its mini-programs on 520! Are countless businesses going to cry?

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Today is May 20th, which is pronounced as 520 in Chinese. It is the day when many couples show their affection and send gifts to each other. It is also the day when e-commerce companies work hard to market and acquire new users and traffic. However, this year, many businesses may be crying in their hearts because some online activities planned on WeChat are destined to fail to successfully acquire new customers. The reason is a new move made by WeChat recently.

Recently, the WeChat Open Community issued a notice stating that due to a large number of user complaints received recently, the normal use process was blocked and redirected to the App during the use of the Mini Program, which seriously affected the user experience of the Mini Program; and the relevant function design was easily considered by users to be incomplete in the support of the Mini Program function, which was actually the developer abusing the interface capabilities and restricting the normal use process of users. Therefore, WeChat said that the platform will no longer provide "Mini Program Open App Technical Service" after May 20, 2021. 520 has since become a sad day for major WeChat Mini Program operators.

Since the birth of mobile Internet, traffic and how to obtain traffic have become the subjects of painstaking meditation for Internet practitioners. As a national-level social software, WeChat undoubtedly controls the traffic entrance that is "rich enough to rival a country". According to WeChat's financial report, as of the end of the third quarter of 2020, the number of monthly active WeChat accounts reached 1.213 billion, which means that almost everyone in my country has a WeChat account. In addition, at the WeChat Open Class on January 19, the WeChat Open Class instructor revealed that the number of daily active users of WeChat Mini Programs exceeded 400 million, and the annual transaction volume of Mini Programs in 2020 increased by more than 100% year-on-year.

When WeChat first launched mini programs, many netizens cheered: one less app can be installed on the phone, freeing up more memory space. However, as the number of WeChat mini program users increases, this fertile traffic will inevitably be targeted and become an entry point for inducing traffic. WeChat even has the term "private domain traffic".

Netizens who like to watch short videos on WeChat must have encountered this problem: when the user is watching a video normally, the page prompts to jump back to the App after the operation, affecting the continued viewing of the video content.

Friends who like online shopping must have encountered this problem: when users are browsing product reviews, they are directed to open the App in the middle, which affects their ability to continue browsing the product page.

I hate this operation of diverting traffic to third-party apps, especially when I open a Weibo link with a WeChat applet to dawdle and eat melons, but I am asked to open Weibo. How can this seem to be different from the original intention of building a mini program?

This type of operation disgusts many users, and user complaints are also the reason why WeChat announced the disabling of the "Mini Program Open App Technical Service" function. WeChat said that WeChat Mini Program provides developers with technical services to open Apps, and hopes to provide WeChat users with a better user experience through reasonable applications by developers. While the platform encourages mini programs to provide high-quality content and services, it also pays great attention to the smooth experience of users in mini programs.

WeChat said that the behavior of the mini program guiding the opening of the App violates Section 5.15 of the WeChat Mini Program Platform Operation Specifications and is an abuse of interface capabilities. WeChat Mini Programs should use the various functions, interfaces, and capabilities provided by Tencent legally, compliantly, properly, and in good faith. When using them, they should follow the relevant WeChat Mini Program agreement rules, protect the legitimate rights and interests of WeChat users and other third parties, and comply with Tencent's requirements and suggestions for WeChat Mini Programs. It is not allowed to abuse, improperly use, or use the above functions, interfaces, capabilities, etc. by yourself or assist others in doing so.

Based on this, WeChat Mini Program decided to deactivate the service on May 20, and at the same time reminded WeChat Mini Program developers to make timely development adjustments to the Mini Program to avoid affecting the service process after the recycling.

After the author's test, within two days of WeChat issuing this notice, many mini-programs stopped jumping to the APP. For example, Weibo and Zhihu can now read other topics and comments very smoothly. The user experience and feeling have been improved by several levels compared to before.

There is no doubt that "Mini Program opens App technical services" is a good thing for WeChat users, but at the same time some netizens have doubts.

Some netizens said that WeChat's approach was too simplistic and crude, saying that the one-size-fits-all approach was not reasonable. Mini programs that maliciously divert traffic should be rectified and banned, but at the same time, some functions of some standardized mini programs cannot be realized through mini programs. WeChat officials should actively guide and retain them. At the same time, some netizens raised more sharp questions: You can jump from the APP to the mini program scene, but if there is no return, and you cannot jump back to the APP from the WeChat mini program, will it become a control of traffic or even a "monopoly"?

The reason why netizens have such concerns is that in the process of using WeChat mini-programs, they found that some products developed by Tencent can still jump to third-party apps normally. For example, the entrance of the WeChat Reading mini-program that guides the jump to the WeChat Reading APP is very bright and eye-catching.

As a WeChat user, I have no doubt that WeChat Mini Programs are trying hard to improve the user experience. The notification that WeChat will stop the function of jumping to third-party apps also reminds us of our lessons: if we rely too much on the traffic from one end and the structure is too simple, then our future and destiny will be controlled by others.