From 1.0 to 7.0, WeChat has continued to replace and iterate over a period of ten years.
Editor’s note: This article comes from Interface News, author Tan Yifan.
On January 21, 2021, the tenth anniversary of WeChat’s launch, I also handed over my own transcript: 1.09 billion users opened pages, 780 million users entered Moments, and 400 million users used mini programs.
Behind the glamour, drifting bottles, flying planes, walkie-talkies… these once-familiar names have also been replaced and ended under the continuous changes of the Internet.
In ten years, what other “WeChat memories” are impressive but no longer exist?
“Shake a Shake” to upload pictures
“Shake” is a random social function launched by WeChat. After shaking to friends who are “shaking” at the same time, you can directly click to start chatting. However, “shaking and shaking” image transfer is not the same as the original “shaking and shaking” function positioning. The main purpose is to facilitate data transfer between different devices.
After installing the “Shake” plug-in, a QR code will appear in the computer browser. After clicking “Scan” in the upper right corner, put the QR code into the viewfinder to scan it automatically.
Connect to a computer via a QR code, and the two devices can send pictures and text links freely. Just shake it, no matter what web page the PC is browsing, the pictures in the web page can be instantly uploaded to the mobile device.
It now appears that such an operation method can not help but be a bit cumbersome and complicated, but it was also a “digital” transmission method at the time. However, after the official PC version of WeChat was launched, photos can be sent directly to mobile phones, which is more convenient than “shaking” to upload pictures.
At present, the “shaking” image transfer function has not completely disappeared. The “shaking” image transfer function and plug-in download link are still maintained on the official WeChat website, but I am afraid that this nostalgic transfer method is still used There are not many users anymore.
WeChat walkie-talkie
In February 2013, WeChat released version 4.5. The sentence “This time, we redefine the walkie-talkie” on the launch introduction page is still impressive.
When WeChat users want to use the walkie-talkie function, they need to choose a friend group or choose a friend to cooperate. When using, the user needs to find the real-time intercom button on the chat page, and touch the button to enter the microReal-time intercom function.
After entering the intercom interface, you need to wait for the other party to accept the intercom. During the waiting process, your avatar will appear. When two avatars appear, it means that the other party accepts the intercom. After the intercom is initiated, press and hold the round button in the middle to realize the intercom.
At the time, it seemed that the walkie-talkie function introduced by WeChat was thought to directly impact the communications industry of major operators. In the era of high tariffs in the 3G network, the walkie-talkie function that does not require additional call charges has already achieved the purpose of real-time calls with only data consumption.
In addition, because the ipad and other terminals were also popular at the time, by connecting to wifi, the ipad could realize a function similar to making a call, which also caused the trend of the time.
However, after the rise of 4G networks, voice and video calls have basically solved the needs of daily calls. Real-time intercom has become the “brand of the times”, and it has lost the original meaning of WeChat to “redefine walkie-talkies”.
Finally, in version 6.3.5 3 years later, the “real-time intercom” function was offline, and now it can only be found in “WeChat location sharing”.
Emotion Store
In August 2013, WeChat released version 5.0, the emoji store function was officially launched, and 5 sets of emoji were announced for the first time, each priced at 6 yuan.
At that time, paid emojis were already a profit model for social software such as Line and Whatsapp. So when WeChat launched the emoji store, it was considered another attempt in the commercialization process.
But when the emoji store just launched, there were some objections. Some users found that paid emoji stores only exist in mainland China, and WeChat emojis in Hong Kong and Taiwan remain free. In addition, there have also been cases of emoticons purchased or downloaded on iPhones, which are limited to use on iPhones, and use on Android phones and need to be purchased or downloaded again.
In addition, during the development of the emoji store, WeChat also invited Deng Chao, Lu Han andStars such as Angelababy made exclusive emoticons, but the result is still difficult to conceal the development of paid emoticons.
Later, the emoji development platform was launched on WeChat, and all emojis were modified to be downloaded for free, instead of charging, the emoji store was officially offline.
“Hit a plane”
In addition to the emoji store, another feature of WeChat version 5.0 that has to be mentioned is the “flying plane” game in the game center.
When logging in to WeChat 5.0 for the first time, users will be directly entered into a small game of “fighting a plane” by default. Users can click and move their own big airplanes, and when avoiding other oncoming airplanes, they can shoot down other small airplanes to win points.
Once you hit another aircraft, the game will end. At this time, the player’s aircraft battle score will be displayed in the interface. After you click Continue, you will see the “This week’s aircraft battle leaderboard”, that is, your friend’s Score ranking.
After exiting the game, in the WeChat game center, players can also see their game rankings and start again. For the first time, each player has ten chances to play airplane wars. After playing all the corresponding opportunities, players can ask for airplanes from friends, or wait 5 minutes before starting the game.
As a nostalgic little game that has set off a national craze, “Hit a plane” is undoubtedly very successful in topic marketing and in supporting games. But now, “fighting a plane” has also fulfilled the mission given to it by WeChat. It has lost a huge user base and remains in the memory of hundreds of millions of users.
Official account “Friends Message”
In April 2018, some netizens broke the news that WeChat was testing the “Friend Message” function. In the internal beta version, in addition to selected messages, users can also see the messages of friends who have not been selected. But after a short grayscale test, this function was withdrawn.
On April 9th of the same year, the “Friend Message” function of the official account was officially launched. On the official account user message interface, WeChat will prompt “messages are visible to friends and will be visible to everyone after being screened by the official account”. On the backend of the WeChat official account, the words “messages are visible to the user’s friends, and the reply content is also” will also be displayed.
This means that as long as friends leave a message under the official account article, regardless of whether the message is set as a selected message, you can see the friend’s message in the first column under the article.The word “friend” after “‘s message is also reserved.
WeChat officials once stated that the update is intended to further enhance the social attributes of official account messages and enhance the enthusiasm and interaction of users’ messages.
However, users did not buy it. A survey has shown that 60% of WeChat users do not like this feature, and many users have expressed that they are more concerned that unreviewed messages will be released and their every move will be seen by all their friends.
In June 2018, the “Friend Message” function was officially offline. WeChat stated that it will continue to optimize related functions so that both official account authors and readers can have a better experience on the WeChat official platform.
“Drifting Bottle”
In May 2019, in the official version of WeChat 7.0.4, the WeChat “Drifting Bottle” function was officially offline.
The drifting bottle function first appeared in the qq mailbox. The user can write a paragraph and put it in the drifting bottle, and then throw it into the “sea” to give it to strangers anonymously. If the received person clicks to pick it up, they can see the message. If you don’t want to respond, you can throw it into the “sea” again.
In the early stage of the development of the Internet in China, the drift bottle function was very popular among users. According to reports, after three days of launching Drift Bottle, the number of users exceeded 1 million, and reached 10 million after half a year, allowing QQ mailbox to exceed 100 million active users, surpassing NetEase mailbox to become the number one.
So, when WeChat was launched in 2011, Drifting Bottle also came to WeChat as an original feature.
However, with the increase of user base and the intrusion of some harmful information, the development of “Drifting Bottle” has also encountered problems. Someone has done a test, and 7 out of 25 drifting bottles found in 4 days contained pornographic information.
In November 2018, WeChat’s official WeChat account “WeChat Pie” issued a statement stating that WeChat found that users still use Drift Bottle and other functions to post pornographic content or pornographic advertisements. In response, the WeChat team carried out a special cleanup and temporarily offline related services of WeChat Drift Bottle and QQ Mail Drift Bottle. However, it was not completely offline at that time, the relevant entrances were still there, and users could only get “starfish”.
As one of the most popular features of WeChat, “Drifting Bottle” has not stood the test of time. This WeChat function, which wanders between pornography and anonymous social networking, did not enter the normal track in the end.
Moment Video
It can also be regarded as one of the shortest online functions in WeChat history.