What does it mean for WeChat to open 11 interfaces?

WeChat has opened 11 JS-SDK interfaces, including sharing, images, audio, WeChat payment, WeChat card wallet, etc. Many entrepreneurs were ecstatic after seeing this, and Rock Heart was also a little excited after seeing the introduction of the opening of 11 interfaces on WeChat official public account.

Because the opening of multiple interfaces by WeChat this time has verified my previous judgment on the direction of WeChat's development, just like a missile dropped in the bustling era of industrial integration, it will inevitably bring "earthquakes". In " Talking about the future of WeChat's O2O road from the collapse of Dingdong Community ", I talked about "WeChat should provide a series of capabilities for other applications and platforms that connect services, so that WeChat can be distributed in more service apps and web pages. WeChat should give up the idea of ​​becoming a super platform and become a ubiquitous super portal."

In the article "Talking about openness, decentralization and centralization from the crowdfunding cafe", I talked about "decentralization is a means, not an end. I disagree with the practice of Internet platforms plugging power strips into themselves. This is not a decentralized approach and will inevitably lead to serious problems such as efficiency, experience, and lack of scenarios." "WeChat connecting everything should be renamed everything connectable, which is a natural move. At the same time, the practice of plugging power strips means that WeChat is the center of all partners, which is something partners don't want to see. Everything connectable means that Tencent outputs resources and capabilities, rather than control over partners, which will also improve efficiency and enrich WeChat usage scenarios."

WeChat has now opened 11 interfaces, almost opening up all of its capabilities to partners, which is consistent with the views in my two articles above. So, what is the reason for WeChat to open up 11 interfaces or 11 capabilities? What will it bring? What challenges will WeChat face next?

WeChat's opening up of 11 capabilities is a natural progression, but also a helpless one

On the evening of January 9, after seeing WeChat announce the opening of its interfaces, I posted a message on WeChat Moments: "WeChat's opening of interfaces this time is a change from internal openness to external openness, from true closure and false openness to openness of capabilities. WeChat is constantly correcting mistakes and making progress."

This sentence actually summarizes the reason why WeChat opened 11 interfaces. It has been 4 years since WeChat was released in January 2011. These 4 years have been 4 years of rapid development of the mobile Internet industry. However, WeChat seems to be still groping in the business model. I have always believed that it is caused by the limitation of thinking. Of course, in this new era of industrial integration, we must cross the river by feeling the stones.

Previously, WeChat always wanted to make a big splash on official accounts and wanted to open up some capabilities to official accounts, thereby creating an ecosystem with WeChat as a super platform. This was also an important driving force for Tencent's stock price to rise from HK$300 to more than HK$640.

However, after four years of development, WeChat found that it did not seem to be a user habit to let companies provide services to users through official accounts. Official accounts found it difficult to utilize the traffic of Moments, and could not create more scenarios for companies to reach users. Not many companies had gained considerable benefits from using official accounts, and it also brought about problems such as WeChat's bloat, inefficiency, and poor experience.

Therefore, the efficiency and effect of internal opening were not ideal, so a series of WeChat capabilities were opened to the outside world, allowing more entrepreneurs to obtain services through familiar web pages, and enjoy the user traffic, photo taking, voice translation, payment and other capabilities of WeChat Moments, spontaneously creating a series of usage scenarios, making WeChat decentralized and ubiquitous.

What changes will WeChat bring after opening up 11 capabilities?

After opening up to the outside world, it will bring about major changes in the entire industry:

First, WeChat public accounts will no longer be the vanguard of enterprise connection services. The idea of ​​turning public accounts into platforms does not seem to be the best solution, and HTML5 pages will become another "weapon" to serve users, while public accounts are just a "sedimentation pool" for users, mainly responsible for communicating with users. This also means that WeChat is no longer bloated and relieves its own pressure, which is conducive to continuing to maintain the excellent product experience.

Secondly, WeChat Pay is likely to be activated, and Alipay is facing pressure. Tencent has given up some business projects such as e-commerce and search, and focused on social platforms. Payment can only be done with payment scenarios. The current red envelope sending scenario is not enough to support the development of a payment tool. I have talked about how WeChat Pay must eventually be independent like Alipay and dispersed into various payment scenarios. Now that WeChat Pay capabilities are open, any HTML5 page can call it. These entrepreneurs will actively use WeChat Pay as a means of payment for transactions, which will inevitably bring great pressure to Alipay.

Secondly, apps will die on a large scale, and H5 pages will appear in large numbers. In "Apps are dead, services live forever", I talked about the trend that apps are on the verge of extinction. The opening of WeChat this time will undoubtedly make the App market worse. This is a good opportunity for HTML5 developers to make money. Previously, Baidu's promotion of "Direct Number + Light Application" has already revolutionized the App once, and WeChat is "finishing the knife" this time. Of course, WeChat's move will also have an impact on Baidu's new model of connecting services. One is the precise guidance of traffic through search, and the other is the close sharing of traffic through social networking. Which is better remains to be seen.

After WeChat is opened, the next problem is

A friend said that WeChat may have had such plans for opening up to the outside world long ago, but the technology is not mature and the conditions are not met until today. I think this makes sense, but WeChat has previously focused all its attention on its own public accounts, which may have led to limited thinking and vision, and the final reflection on the product is that it has been "open to the inside" for the past four years, and now it is finally open to the outside world. This is a huge progress and deserves applause.

So, will there be no problems after the opening? Obviously not.

First, product security and experience. In the process of opening up, entrepreneurs will face some problems when using these interfaces. Product experience and payment security are the key points, which requires WeChat to invest manpower and resources to continuously adjust and solve them.

Secondly, there is the problem of excessive advertising in Moments. After public accounts are no longer the focus, H5 pages will be widely adopted by businesses, and this requires promotion through sharing to Moments. One-click sharing to Moments will bring display and traffic, which will inevitably lead to excessive advertising and affect the experience. It depends on how WeChat balances and manages it. Can we find a better way to deliver traffic to H5 pages, such as WeChat's search portal?

Thirdly, the interface can only be called in the browser within WeChat, which is far from open enough. At present, the payment function of Didi Taxi can already jump to WeChat, because Didi is a company invested and controlled by Tencent. Other applications and products can only call the interface capabilities when the page is opened in the WeChat browser, which is somewhat limited. I predict that the next step will be full opening. WeChat must be decentralized to create more usage scenarios and activate the payment function, which will not only be open to H5 pages, but also to Apps.

Third, WeChat is still a light Internet platform, which will lead to too weak control. The transformation of traditional industries needs the help of Internet companies. Internet companies cannot just be light platforms, but must provide professional services and get involved in more links of the industrial chain. Only in this way can they succeed. However, WeChat is afraid of occupying too many links, which undoubtedly gives up control. Of course, this is just my personal opinion.

Fourth, WeChat is doing something idealistic, which may be a little early. The Internet did not show its influence on traditional industries until the 3Q war in 2010, and did not show its influence on lifestyle until 2014, so everything is just beginning. However, WeChat did something very advanced, which is to idealistically believe that everything can rely on the power of social networking and the power of human governance to create a perfect business.

The reality is not like this. Taobao has a complete and strict mechanism to control counterfeit goods, but it is still difficult to solve the problem of counterfeit goods. Everyone is doing WeChat business, using social power to subvert Taobao, so how to solve the problem of counterfeit goods in WeChat business? WeChat says that it depends on user discovery, user word of mouth, and user digestion. There are fake news, fake articles, and plagiarism in public accounts. WeChat says that WeChat is a society, of course it allows ugliness, and it also depends on the members of society to supervise and report.

The reason why the United States, which has a history of more than 200 years, has quickly become the world's most powerful economy is because of the establishment of the constitutional system. The first country in Asia to learn the American constitutional system was Japan, which also rose rapidly. Through the system to constrain people's behavior, people begin to have civilized habits. However, many dynasties in our country believe in rule by man. Confucianism and Buddhism have occupied an important position in China's development for thousands of years. Relying on one's own "enlightenment" has become a management method, and there is also a saying of "ruling by doing nothing", which ultimately caused the emergence of various problems in contemporary China, and most of them are attributed to institutional problems. Therefore, WeChat's concept of rule by man is idealistic, perfectionist, and belongs to the future. WeChat is also trying to promote this future civilization, which is also the greatness of WeChat, but the stage we are in now may be far from the future.

However, we cannot deny that this new future civilization created by WeChat will bring more innovations, because the inherent rules and models belong to the past after all. Miracles that we cannot predict may be born in a state of disorder, and restrictions and rules will hinder the germination of the seeds of innovation. Therefore, WeChat is indeed creating a brand new civilization and giving birth to new business forms. We must pay tribute to WeChat for this!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.