Will anonymous group chat become the next social hotspot?

It has been half a year since Wumi ignited the anonymous social networking market in China at the beginning of this year. During this period, many start-up teams have also entered this field and have been favored by the investment market.

In order to stand out from many similar anonymous social products, many products approach from a more segmented and vertical perspective, such as focusing on the post-90s generation, schools or companies, but from the user's perspective, the models are still very similar.

Just today, the anonymous social application Wumi released a new version for Android and iOS platforms, adding an anonymous group chat function. It is understood that users can join groups created by their friends or participated by friends, and can also initiate group chats on their own. Coincidentally, the foreign anonymous social software Rumr also has an anonymous group chat function; not long ago, the new version of QQ added the "anonymous group chat" function. It can be seen that anonymous group chat may become the next hot spot of anonymous social software.

According to the WuMi team, after a user creates a group, his or her friends on WuMi will receive a prompt and can join the group. At the same time, any group member can share the group link with WeChat and QQ friends and invite friends to join the anonymous group chat.

According to experience, in the anonymous group of Wumi, except for the default avatar of the host, the avatar of each member is still randomly assigned. In addition, every member, including the group owner, can choose to "transform" (limited to 5 times a day), and the avatar will be randomly assigned again after the transformation. The random avatar and transformation functions ensure that group members can be absolutely anonymous and reduce the possible identity recognition caused by the association between previous and subsequent conversations.

The usage scenario of the "anonymous group chat" function of the new version of QQ is that in any chat group, after the administrator sets "allow anonymous chat", group members can chat anonymously in the group. All information posted in the group is anonymous, and the original avatar will be hidden and replaced with a unified anonymous avatar.

In addition, administrators can ban or report anonymous rumormongers, but cannot directly kick them out of the QQ group. The maximum ban period is one day.

Regarding the newly added anonymous group chat function, the WuMi team said that anonymous group chats based on acquaintances often allow participants to express their ideas more realistically and thoroughly.

According to the WuMi team, they have received a lot of feedback from users before. Such demands came from company employees and classmates. Some companies wanted to create an anonymous group or circle so that employees can freely express their thoughts and opinions on various aspects of the company.

An industry insider told Tencent Technology that embedding anonymous chat functions into social software will add more fun to the traditional chat mode. "The explosion of anonymous social networking is largely due to various pressures in life. People are constrained by various relationships and environments and often cannot express their true thoughts. Anonymity provides a way to relieve stress."

However, although the anonymous group chat function brings more interesting usage scenarios to users, the function is still a bit thin and can be easily imitated and copied by other anonymous social software. If entrepreneurs want to find new breakthroughs among many similar software, they still need to do a lot.

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.