Can the new version of Alipay revolutionize WeChat?

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October 14th was my birthday in my zodiac year. I was honored to release the new version 9.2 of Alipay that night. In this new version, the "Life Circle" function was added, and the "Read and Burn" function was added. These two are typical social functions. Jack Ma's social heart is still alive. After "Laiwang" was half-dead and "Dingding" focused on enterprise services, he launched the socialization of Alipay. This determination and persistence must have made Ma Huateng at the southern end of the map sleepless.

The new version will certainly cause discussions from many sides and dimensions. I will only discuss it from the perspective of social interaction. Can Alipay revolutionize WeChat?

In order to make the analysis logic clearer, I recommend you to read Liu Run's "Apple and Microsoft, Who is Beating Who?" You can search it on Baidu.

The author of the article said that the dispute between Microsoft and Apple is actually a basic route. Microsoft is using the "high power consumption, high performance" X86 architecture, while Apple is using the "low power consumption, low performance" ARM architecture. Both are running towards the "low power consumption, high performance" midpoint, but they start from the two ends of the track. Whoever reaches the midpoint first wins. I will not repeat the analysis and other contents of this book. I will only quote this logic of moving from both ends to the middle to analyze WeChat and Alipay. In my opinion, the dispute between WeChat and Alipay is very similar to the dispute between Microsoft and Apple.

The battle between WeChat and Alipay is a battle between social networking and e-commerce. One is "focusing on e-commerce and neglecting social networking", and the other is "light on e-commerce and focusing on social networking". Both want to move to the middle point of "focusing on social networking and focusing on e-commerce". There are many relationships in WeChat: friends, classmates, colleagues, family, etc., but Tencent has always wanted to realize the value of these relationships through e-commerce, which is why Tencent firmly invested in Weidian, Koudaitong, and supported JD Weidian. Tencent especially wants to sort out the transaction relationship chain from the numerous relationship chains, and use its own relationship advantages to do e-commerce and commercialize the relationship. However, Alipay only has a transaction relationship chain, a single buyer-seller relationship, and lacks other relationships such as friends, colleagues, and classmates. Alibaba has always wanted to expand other social relationships through a large number of high-frequency e-commerce relationships to socialize e-commerce. This is what I mean when I say that both sides are moving from the two ends of the social and e-commerce tracks to the middle.

As for the importance of social networking and e-commerce to both companies, I will not elaborate on them. Moats, competitive barriers, and attacking them are the strategic deployment arrangements. Under the deduction of the think tanks of both sides, I don’t know how magnificent the scenery is. As a bystander who has studied social networking a little and watched the fun, this is how I see it:

I have written an article analyzing the nature of social interaction before. I said that WeChat has a firm grip on the throat of social interaction among acquaintances (or semi-acquaintances). Any social software will be shadowed by WeChat. However, I did not analyze the characteristics of social interaction among acquaintances. I will share it with you here.

The main purpose of social interaction among acquaintances is to "maintain relationships", and relationships are maintained mainly through two means, communication and interaction. Communication refers to communication between everyone, such as I call you, chat with you, send you a message, send you an email, etc.; interaction refers to everyone's interaction, such as we make an appointment to drink, eat, go shopping, etc. In real life, when we interact, there are also some interest behaviors, such as I pay a bill, I visit with a fruit basket, or two bottles of wine and a few cigarettes. This is called "moving around" in reality, and the more you move around, the closer the relationship. Put it on WeChat, this is why the IM function is the first menu in WeChat design, because communication is the first, and then relationship management. The circle of friends provides everyone with a channel for interaction. Likes and comments are interactions between both parties, and the design of WeChat red envelopes naturally solves the interest demands in "moving around". Don't you see that sending WeChat red envelopes has greatly brought you and your friends closer? Are groups with WeChat red envelopes very active?

The new version of Alipay adds the function of "Life Circle", which is essentially an "interaction" function, while "Read and Burn" is a complete "communication" function. The logic of the new version is that Alipay wants to establish social interaction among acquaintances. I have to mention that the function of "Reward" has been added to the dynamics of friends in the Life Circle, which I like very much. As time goes by, likes are too simple. Your 100 likes are not as good as a 10 yuan reward. Three months ago, our product was still under development. I discussed with our team and said that the next version of our social friends' dynamics must add "Reward". In the future, don't ask for likes, just ask for rewards directly. Now our product has not been developed yet, but Alipay has already added this function. In addition, Alipay has a thorough real-name authentication, and this acquaintance relationship is more solid and reliable.

After Alipay perfected the function of maintaining social connections among acquaintances, can it revolutionize WeChat? Of course not. Think about when WeChat was first launched, it took a lot of effort to import relationships from QQ, email, and mobile phone contacts. It took a long time and several versions to form its own relationship chain. Although Alipay has the ability to maintain acquaintance relationships, it still needs to spend a lot of time and energy to import relationships. Alipay can only use mobile phone contacts. Wangwang’s relationship is too biased towards buyers and sellers. It is estimated that in subsequent operations, Alipay will strongly encourage the import of relationships. Of course, as long as the mobile phone contact relationship can be imported, it will be fine. When the user relationship chain is formed, Alipay is ready to impact WeChat. Alipay has many operational means to import user relationship chains, such as uploading mobile phone contacts to add relationships, and Alipay mobile phone recharges are 10% off. I believe in Ali's operational capabilities. When the user relationship chain is formed, Ali can focus on operating the life circle. When the Alipay life circle is operated, I think WeChat's circle of friends will be over, and Ali has delivered the heaviest blow.

Now both sides are moving from the two ends to the middle. Of course, the road is bumpy. WeChat wants to sort out the transaction relationship chain in the relationship chain, but WeChat merchants are not welcome in the circle of friends and are basically blocked. Alipay wants to integrate acquaintances and friends in addition to transaction relationships, but has not been able to do so. When one company can best handle transaction relationships and acquaintance relationships and can cleverly integrate them, it will be clear who will revolutionize whom.

***Let me make my point clear. Of course I hope that Ali's social networking can succeed. After all, in China, the shadow of WeChat is a pain for everyone who does social networking. It doesn't matter if you can't defeat it, it's OK if you are evenly matched.