![]() It was written by: Jianqing Chen, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Like this article? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. I believe many tech leaders could benefit from a more sophisticated understanding of “everything” when envisioning the everything app, and not just equate “everything” simply with big and comprehensive. Perhaps WeChat’s interpretation of the word “everything” – as simultaneously pervasive and inconspicuous – is the secret to its success over the past 10 years. This perspective adds another layer of meaning to “everything” and opens up alternative visions of what an everything app can be. As Tao Te Ching states, “Dao begets One (or nothingness), One begets Two (yin and yang), Two begets Three (Heaven, Earth and Man or yin, yang and breath qi), Three begets all things.” For Taoist thinkers, not-being determines how all things within the cosmos come into being, evolve and disappear.Īlthough the depth of these sagely texts is unfathomable, the Taoist thoughts from the past help people appreciate the interplay of everything and nothing. This environment of pervasiveness and unobtrusiveness resonates with the ancient Chinese Taoist philosophy that understands nothing (wu 无, or “not-being”) as that which forms the basis of all things (wanwu 万物 or “ten thousand things”). WeChat is what media scholars call “ elemental”: inconspicuous and nonintrusive, yet pervasive and as fundamental as the natural elements, just like air, water and clouds. They give users the feeling that WeChat has disappeared or merged into the environment. These miniprograms appear to be ephemeral, diffusive and almost atmospheric. They can be opened by swiping down the screen. Miniprograms are stored in a hidden panel at the top of the screen. ![]() Users can simply search in the app or scan a QR code to open a miniprogram, skipping the cumbersome processes of installing and uninstalling new apps. Miniprograms are embedded into WeChat as third-party developed sub-applications, and they provide users with easy access to a large range of services – like hailing a taxi, ordering food, buying train tickets and playing games – without leaving WeChat. The design of WeChat miniprograms makes Zhang’s idea clear. A low demand for time and effort is key to bringing users back into the app without exhausting them. This might seem paradoxical – if WeChat is trying to get its users to leave the app as fast as possible, how can it maintain its internet empire? Typically an app’s popularity is assessed based on how long users spend in the app, and users’ attention is the scarce resource various digital platforms fight for.īut Zhang claims that in order to sustain users’ daily engagement with the app in the long run, it’s important to let them leave the app as fast as possible. Zhang emphasized that one of WeChat’s design principles is to “get users out of the app as fast as possible,” meaning to reduce the amount of time users spend in WeChat. The app forms a relatively closed social space, since WeChat users can see only what their contacts post, unlike apps like Weibo or TikTok, where celebrities amass millions of followers.īut the lack of flashy, attention-grabbing features is actually one of WeChat’s intentional design philosophies, as WeChat’s founder and chief developer Allen Xiaolong Zhang made clear in his annual public speeches in 20. WeChat rarely changes its logo to celebrate holidays or sends admin notifications to users. A counterintuitive design philosophyĭespite WeChat’s status as an everything app, it’s one of the least notable and attractive apps on my smartphone. This dream of an internet empire is perhaps what is so enticing for tech leaders like Musk. This “everythingness” leaves little room for rival companies to achieve similar dominance and turns every tap or swipe on a user’s smartphone into something a big tech company can profit from. ![]() ![]() It forms a gigantic digital hub that, as German philosopher and media theorist Peter Sloterdijk once described, “has drawn inwards everything that was once on the outside.” The app creates an all-encompassing and ever-expanding media ecosystem that influences users’ daily activities. Its “everythingness” refers to its near omnipresence and omnipotence in everyday life. In this sense, WeChat is indeed an everything app. A smartphone displays WeChat’s group-messaging function.
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