Today Tencent’s social media, messaging and all-round lifestyle platform WeChat launched beta testing for a new type of official account: the app account. This new account type has the potential to revolutionise smartphone apps.

The log-in screen for WeChat’s new app account

Background

Until today, there have been two types of accounts available to businesses who want to use WeChat: service accounts and subscription accounts. Service accounts have features tailored for handling customer service enquiries and interfacing with e-commerce and m-commerce. While subscription accounts are designed for publications and allow more frequent messages and the ability to sell advertising space through end-of-message banners.

In January this year, a Senior Vice-President of Tencent, and the man heading up WeChat, Zhang Xiaolong, dropped hints that the company was developing a third type of account, an app account.

Today the first of these app accounts have been made available to a closed beta test. Dubbed “Mini App Accounts” (小程序 in Chinese), we’re already getting news of the functionality of these mini-applications.

What’s a Mini App Account?

Essentially, rather than storing an app on a phone, WeChat wants its users to “stream” apps through their platform. Apps have proliferated over the years. It’s too easy to fill up a phone with apps that are only opened once every month. WeChat’s solution to this might well change the way we all use apps as the company is leading the charge in many of its functions.

WeChat was already straddling the line between app and mobile operating system by offering features that touch different parts of its users’ daily lives. Many businesses have already built complicated HTML5 sites that allow WeChat users to shop, get information or play games through WeChat’s inbuilt mobile browser. HTML5 sites have long been the standard for increasing engagement on an account and driving sales or brand awareness for marketers.

Based on the success of the HTLM5 sites, WeChat’s app accounts offer further integration tools with WeChat’s functions, and allow for much more complicated builds with Java Script. We know that the app account API offers payment integration, and will presumably offer easy integration with a wide number of other WeChat tools. Just how much more functionality the app account offers over existing HTML5 sites we’re yet to know. However as more news comes out, we should find out soon.

The Future

The service is only in its infancy, it’s hard to predict just what kinds of innovation and successes we’ll see from companies when app accounts are made available to all companies. However if successful, WeChat will move to an even more dominant position in the market.

WeChat is already leading the way, internationally, in a number of tools and features that the messaging app offers. From simple chatbots to integrated payments, WeChat is ahead of its Western counterparts. If the platform is successful in becoming a window for users to access smaller apps, then this is yet another example of an exciting innovation coming from Tencent. Long gone are the days of China simply being a copycat.Visit us at Half A World to keep up to date with the latest developments in digital in the Asia-Pacific