♎️ 🐃 👈🏼 Wechat or a truly comprehensive application. What can a developer do with it 🏝️ 👶🏿 ⏱️

I have written more than once or twice about this messenger. But it is so comprehensive, useful, used so widely and provides such a huge toolkit that you will not mention anything in twenty articles. Here, I still try to collect everything that he can offer and what the developer (or the company conducting any business) can extract from this.

Many (most often foreigners) complain about Wechat's inability and its inconvenience to use. For example, it only recently introduced the ability to line feed (the Chinese language does not feel the need for paragraphs), it does not rewind audio messages (although there is a separate question for those who send them), there is a limit on the size of the transferred files, so-so message synchronization between devices (although this feature does not seem to work fine anywhere), etc. That is, just like a messenger - it has quite a few shortcomings.

On the other hand, not a single product in the world can offer such comprehensive scenarios of user interaction that affect absolutely all spheres of life, I declare this with all responsibility. The faint resemblance - Japanese Line and the Korean Kakaotalk - is exactly that faint resemblance, with a maximum of half the functionality. So, Wechat can:

Creation and maintenance of public accounts

Something between the company's website, its news feed and a tool for interacting with subscribers. For example, a public account of Beijingvodokanal.

News about their work is published in the feed, and interaction with users is implemented in the menu below - you can check the balance of your meters, pay for water and report a breakdown / lack of water. All these links lead to the gadget, what it is - a little later.

In fact, a public account is a means of communicating with users and conveying information to them, as well as feedback. This is also a very convenient landing tool - you can subscribe to an account of interest to a user with one click. Each public (as well as private) account has a unique permanent link - we place a QR code with it anywhere - and the user has already subscribed to us with one click.

There are two types of public accounts:

subscription account, it is 订阅号
service account, aka 服务号

The main difference is in use cases. In a subscription account you can do mass mailing once a day, in a service account - 4 times a month. But in the service account, you can enable high-level user interaction interfaces (OAuth, technical support interface, Wechat payments, etc.), and for the subscription only basic ones are available, and, moreover, without the ability to connect payments. A subscription account can be registered both on a legal entity and on an individual, service account - only on a legal entity.

That is, subscribers are more focused on bloggers, celebrities, who often tell fans something, is not bad for a group at a university, where a headman can do mass mailings and so on. The service one is a tool for landing and further work with subscribers.

The third type, although it is available at registration, corporate Wechat (aka 企业微信) is no longer a public account, but rather something like a task management system, an internal chat of an enterprise like Slack, etc.

Naturally, you can manage users, assign labels to them, pull up their client statuses from the gadget, arrange targeted mailings only to certain groups, and so on and so forth.

The menu at the bottom of the public account is also easily customized to the needs of the developer - you can attach your action to each button, make a submenu, and so on.

The buttons below can be assigned the following actions:

auto reply specific message
redirect to a specific site
launch a specific gadget

In fact, this is a complete alternative to the website, the user can fully interact with the service without leaving your beloved Wechat.

Gadget

Fundamentals and exactly what made Wechat a mega-harvester. The point is simple.
This is also a cross between a full-fledged application and a web page. This is a Javascript application working in Vichat itself, fully utilizing all its tools, which loads all the data in the form of web pages from the specified sources. For example, the application 深圳通 + (transport map of Shenzhen). The interface looks like this

And the list of resources from where the application tightens its authorization, its services and interface - like this (you can see it in the settings)

Applications are written using JavaScript, which allows you to integrate into it almost everything the same as in the native application on the phone. The main minus is the response time. And due to the language of the application, and due to the fact that the resources are in the cloud. That is, a full-fledged full-screen application can not be done in this way, like a game. But for simple applications (simple in terms of interface) - this is a panacea.

Although, after the launch of 5G, which is largely focused on the Internet of things, it significantly reduces the response time - it is possible that everything will change and we will see full-fledged games working in the Wechat frame.

The Chinese Internet infrastructure is developed, without any exaggeration, the best in the world - FTTB to almost every house in the village, 5G is already in almost every city (the whole region of the Great Bay, for example, is 100% covered)

That is, we can expect that these applications will work even faster (although there’s nothing to complain about right now). But why is this a panacea?

Yes, because everyone knows the golden rule "any extra click reduces the conversion by half." I will explain with an example. What do I need to do, for example, to order pizza while in St. Petersburg?

Download the application, enter the phone number, receive SMS, fill in the address, enter the payment data (or wait for forwarding to the payment gateway). What do I need to do while in Beijing? Press literally one button.

Wechat has already granted authorization and tightened up all the user information. Wechat has already pulled up the “delivery address” fields filled in Wechat itself. Wechat has already provided its payment and assumes all risks. Wechat has already provided an API and equipped all couriers with GPS trackers. That is, I just need to enter the word "pizza" in the search field and select which pizza I want.

And this is not all, this is just the beginning. From Wechat we can get something like a user rating. It is considered according to their internal criteria, which are not reported to the developers, we see only the overall rating. If it is equal to 1000 (which is almost unattainable), then such a user can issue a loan for half a million yuan without any checks. If he is below 300, then you should not believe him from the word "completely." Normal is 600 and above.

To be honest, it doesn’t occur to me anything that the Wechat APIs could not do. Among the mini-applications, there is even a cloud-based office suite and an RDP client. Not to mention smart home programs, taxi calls and online reception of government agencies. In fact, being a citizen of China, I can apply for a passport for traveling abroad and home delivery without getting up.

What can I say, recently on the basis of Wechat, full-fledged identity cards have appeared . And these are not some applications like Apple Wallet, where, in fact, only photos are stored, this is a full-fledged ID with which you can check into a hotel, board a plane and go to the Office of Market Affairs to register a new company.

Wechat Payments

Well, everything is quite simple here - this is the ability to pay / receive money using the Wechat wallet integrated into the application. I did a detailed analysis of the payment functionality here , now there is no point in stopping there. It goes without saying that payments are fully integrated into any of the above services. Well, the fact that every person has a Wechat and Wechat wallet, with the exception of babies and 90-year-olds. Although, provided that children's wallets (亲属卡） have recently appeared, which allow children to pay from their parents' wallets (controls and limits are additionally set) by their Wechat, the item about children can be removed.

User communication

There are two possible ways of organizing communication. The first is simple communication. If you look at the interface of any public account, there will be a button at the bottom left that changes the public account menu to the message input line:

Messages sent here will be displayed in the admin panel in the message interface.
They can be answered, the author of the answer will be the public account itself, and not an individual. But few people use it, since the interface is not particularly designed for this, and it is rather an atavism from the past. Instead, it has auto-answers for specific patterns. That is, everything is simple - you set a keyword in the same admin panel. If it is present in the user's message, an automatic response is sent to him, which may include text, picture, sound or video. In the same way, responses to any message and greeting messages are configured.

For normal communication with customers, it is much better to use Wechat technical support. Everything is also very simple - activate this function, add an operator - and after login, it enters a full-fledged Support system with the appointment of operators, waiting, fine-tuning, viewing communication logs, etc. etc. All this is open to developers, you can configure integration with Zendesk and create tickets there when you contact Wechat and all that jazz.

Also, do not forget that everything described above is just the tip of the iceberg, which is configured using the GUI in the admin panel. Using the developer console and API, the possibilities of customization and functionality grow by an order of magnitude.

Native apps

Responsibly, if we set up public accounts and gadgets on mp.weixin.qq.com, then we connect Wechat features for native applications on open.weixin.qq.com.
About Wechat functionality for such applications can also be talked endlessly. Starting with the usual APIs for Oauth and payments (why force a client to register by filling out forms if everything you need for an account can be pulled up from Wechat. Why fence a garden with payments if everyone has a Wechat wallet).

But that is not the main value. The value is that both open and mp communicate well with each other and can be used together with one pass-through ID. The functionality in such cases depends only on the imagination and capabilities of the developer.

We release the game, it is available in the Tencent Android Store. Technical support of the game is carried out through the above method. Links from the game lead to the public account of the game, where news and promotions are held, in-game payments go through Wechat Pay, and the sale of goods with game symbols is through a mini-application. Delivery of goods and communication with customers go through Wechat mini-shop. Etc.

And most importantly - all within the framework of one service and end-to-end ID. And given the prevalence of Wechat - most often other tools are simply not required.

Here, you can look at the list of Wechat services provided:

This is far from all, the rest simply does not fit, or is located in other admin areas.

Some info for funky

Want to be a little dumbfounded? Ask me how, because in 2019 the Market Administration began issuing entrepreneurial licenses, where you can safely specify the web address or AppID in Wechat as the registration address:

If you do not believe it, you can go to gsxt.gov.cn yourself and check specifically this license is numbered 92321003MA1XR33R47

Well, this is not the limit, the tax and government agencies in all go towards entrepreneurs and do not shy away from innovations. Another gem of the collection is LLC with the address of the actual activity “wagons 2 and 5 of the Z108 Shenzhen - Beijing train”.

Well, why not, actually. Who cares what is written in the documents - if you want to do business - they will meet you.

P.S

Did you understand the main feature? Everything is everywhere and in one place, under the wing of one provider, which provides all the APIs for all occasions.

In my phone’s battery statistics over the past 10 days, Wechat took 20%. Not because I often communicate in the messenger - nevertheless, good-old mail messages are much better for working correspondence. Just because I don’t need other applications.

I do not need an online bank - card balance \ credit card debt repayment, etc. is in the Wechat gadget. Not to mention payments.
I do not need taxi, transport, etc. applications - it's all there at Wechat.

Shopping, cafes, restaurants, ordering flowers, airport transfers, visa interviews, tax returns, gift for a friend.

How do you like the “AA 收款“ usage scenario? AA - split the costs in half. When the company goes to the restaurant - everyone scans the same QR code on the table - an order is created where everyone adds his own. When calculating, Wechat suggests launching a “split account”, pulls up information about those who ordered together — and everyone only needs to pay their part from their Wechat.

Then everyone goes to karaoke - I just drive “I want to sing” using a search - Wechat showed me karaoke nearby, I went into his mini-application, and while we were going - I ordered a room, a drink and a tracklist, which will play today. In the same place in the discount aggregator I bought for 100 yuan a discount coupon of 300 (a frequent practice here) and paid.

In general, everything and everything is limited solely by the imagination of the developer.

And most importantly - all this is simple and cheap. Creating a developer account on Wechat requires only 300 yuan for a verification payment, and Javascript - well, it's hard not to find an experienced and good Javascript developer.

Especially for many typical tasks like your store or restaurant, ready-made block solutions already exist. You only need to choose a theme and fill it with your product. Integration with the courier services API is included.

The market is so huge and there are so many offers that we outsource the Wechat application and the public account according to the template “restaurant”, “store”, etc. they will do it for you in 3 days and the price tag starts at $ 1,000 “turnkey”. Naturally, for special Wishlist, the price tag can fly into space, and the development takes years, but where to go ...

PS It seems to be writing a review, but wechat turned out to be solid praises. Well, what can I do - as a developer, when I leave China, in horror I grab my head from the IT infrastructure in the country of my trip. And I say something like this:

AVE Wechat

Wechat or a truly comprehensive application. What can a developer do with it