- Best Wechat Mini Program Games
- What Is Wechat Mini Program
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- Wechat Mini Programs In English
- Best Wechat Mini Programs
- Wechat Mini Program Code
Life services, education, catering, tools, and other categories are the main active accounts of WeChat mini-programs. Compared to last year, WeChat mini-program has a 45% increase in visits per capita, a 98% increase in usage per capita, and a 14% increase in retention. WeChat Mini Programs are sub-applications within the WeChat ecosystem that allow users to access any Web App by without leaving WeChat. There are plenty of ways to access these mini-programs. Whether it be through a direct search, scanning a QR code, or through links on a WeChat official account.
Tencent launched Mini Programs in 2017, by 2019 there were more than a million 'miniature apps' on the platform. Image: Peter Huang
This article is part of a series looking at Mini Programs, check out the other stories here.
WeChat’s place as China’s messaging platform of choice is long-established. Mini Programs are fast becoming equally ubiquitous as the preferred destination for Chinese consumers to execute a panoply of digital functions.
By the end of April, Tencent’s non-downloadable apps housed inside WeChat boasted 400 million daily active users with the average number of Mini Programs used by WeChatters increasing by 98 percent. This expansion of usage speaks to both the sheer volume of programs — more than 1 million — and the ever-growing number of brands, businesses, and cultural organizations creating Mini Programs to serve specific consumer needs.
In short, the versatility of Mini Programs have made them essential for companies connecting with Chinese audiences irrespective of industry.
Here, we highlight leading examples of Mini Program functions across e-commerce, way-finding, gaming, translation, and gift cards.
Live Streaming and E-commerce — Qunar
In China, e-commerce and live streaming are increasingly intertwined, a point reflected in the Mini Program functions of online travel agency Qunar. Beyond offering users a centralized portal to browse and book travel tickets and hotel rooms, Qunar’s “Live” feature introduces destinations and hot deals to audiences.
Qunar’s summer sale live stream drew more than 1.5 million viewers (left) with hosts offering discounted deals on destinations including Disneyland, hotel rooms in Tibet, and resorts in Hainan. Image: Qunar/Peter Huang.
WeChat Pay and Social Gifting — Starbucks
Following a strategic cooperation with Tencent in 2016, Starbucks has used its Mini Program to drive sales. Customers can execute orders directly through Mini Program (both pick-up or delivery) with Starbucks also focusing on social gifting through its “Say it with Starbucks” campaign. Users can send topical gift cards with customized messages to friends and family directly through the Mini Program.
At present, Starbucks’ Mini Program has around 21.5 million users with more than 30 percent of its transactions occurring through WeChat Pay. Image: Startbucks/Peter Huang
Gamification — Palace Museum
The early days of Mini Programs were dominated by games. In 2018, the Palace Museum collaborated with Tencent Gaming to create “Pocket Builder”, a game reminiscent of Nokia’s Snake in which players collect ancient treasures from around the Ming and Qing dynasty home. Aimed at youngsters, “Pocket Builder” educates players on traditional Chinese architecture and art and is readily sharable on users’ WeChat feed.
Palace Museum has several Mini Programs, each serving a specific function, including virtual tours, ticket booking, and souvenirs. Image: Palace Museum/Peter Huang.
Interactive Maps — Legoland
Losing yourself in the thrills of Legoland is one thing, getting lost is another. Merlin Entertainments, Legoland’s parent company, integrated a smart map into its Mini Program which tracks a visitors real-time location in the park and allows them to browse the map by “Attractions”, “Dining”, “Shopping”, “Customer Service”. It also allows visitors to snap a fun geolocated photo.
In 2019, Merlin Entertainments signed a deal with Tencent to create Mini Programs for Sealand Bangkok, Sydney Tower Eye and Legoland Japan.
Translation — Tencent Translator
Google translate may be the translation tool of choice in the English-speaking world, but in China few use it. Tencent’s translations Mini Program covers 13 languages and even translates from images, meaning users can use Tencent Translator to read non-Chinese webpages.
Tencent Translator includes a thesaurus and video language lessons. Image: Tencent Translator/Peter Huang.
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Below is my list of 10 of the best WeChat mini-programs (MPs) currently out there. Simply read the descriptions and instructions then scan the code with WeChat to check them out. Some of the MPs will likely be slow or not work outside mainland China as they are all built for the CN market. Enjoy…
1. Video WeChat Mini Programs
There are a few decent video MPs out there now. The best one by far though (unsurprisingly) is Tencent Video. Did you know you can watch entire full episodes of Game of Thrones directly in WeChat? Simply scan the code below, type in ‘Game of Thrones’ into the search bar.
Take out WeChat and scan the QR code below.
2. Music WeChat Mini Programs
Did you know you can easily listen to a playlist of all music shared on moments by your friends? Open up this mini program 音乐站 (music station) and select the 朋友圈歌曲 (Moments songs) option, see below.
Tip: For MPs playing audio it’s a good idea to pin the MP to the top of your chat timeline and leave it playing while you do other things. Select the … in the top corner and chose ‘Add to desktop’ to do so.
Honorable mention in this category: QQ Music mini program (pic below) is also pretty nice. It works as a personalized radio station playing you tunes that it feels you should like based on your musical preferences and what you have listened to before on QQ music. Type ‘QQ’ into the search bar on WeChat’s mini-programs tab to find it.
3. Free Wi-Fi WeChat Mini Program
This MP allows you to connect to Wifi signals in public places when you might not otherwise be able to. It basically holds a database of wifi passwords across China and is able to connect your device using that information. Use it if you’re stuck in a public area and don’t fancy burning up your data plan.
4. Chinese to English Voice Translation Mini Program
Need to tell the taxi driver that you want to go to the club? Too drunk to attempt broken Mandarin? No worries, this one has you covered. Voice recognition in both English and Chinese.
Honorable mention in this category: Tencent Translation King (腾讯翻译君) works almost identically but also has options for Korean to Chinese and Japanese to Chinese. Copy and paste ‘腾讯翻译君’ into the search bar on WeChat’s mini-programs tab to find it.
Best Wechat Mini Program Games
5. E-commerce Store Mini Programs
E-commerce is by far the hottest category of mini-programs. In the second half of 2017, it’s become increasingly clear that WeChat team are using mini-programs as a way to streamline the buying process on WeChat and fight Taobao/Tmall’s dominance in China’s e-commerce scene. If you’re trying to sell anything on WeChat these days, for sure you should consider using a mini program.
Pinduoduo (above left) is probably the most popular ecommerce MP. It’s based around social selling; you can see from the picture above there are 2 buy buttons (pink and red) at the bottom of the product page.Pink is the price to buy directly, red is the price to group buy, i.e. if you find a friend to buy with you over WeChat (above right).
Another great example of WeChat mini program ecommerce stores is Mushroom Street (蘑菇街) which focuses on women’s fashion. Mushroom Street is interesting because they use live streaming to demo the products (below right), something that’s proved very popular on Taobao.
What Is Wechat Mini Program
6. WeChat Index Mini Program
A classic MP, type any term you want to in English or Chinese into the search bar to find out how the term is trending on WeChat. Recent mentions of ‘bitcoin’ on WeChat below:
Wechat Mini Program For Pc
7. Group Photo Album Mini Program
Make personalized photo albums for your WeChat groups with this mini program. Simply share it with the group and have people add photos to the album. If you want to come back to it go to the group settings and select ‘Mini programs in Chat’ to find it again.
The MP even features automatic facial recognition so you can quickly find all the photos of yourself or a friend from a big album.
Wechat Mini Programs In English
8. Tourist Destination Audio Guide WeChat Mini Programs
Travelling to a different city on hols? WeChat’s got you covered with their brand City Experiences audio guide MPs. Built for the masses of Chinese tourists spreading out across the world, but also with English language support.
According to Fusion 12 supports all Macs launched after 2012. Since the M1 was launched in 2020 it should work. Download VMware Fusion 12 and let your Mac run Windows, Linux or Mac OS X Server. Run the most demanding Mac and Windows applications side-by-side at maximum speeds without rebooting. Vmware for mac. Currently you cannot run VMWare on Macs with Apple’s M1 chip. However, VMWare has announced that they are actively working on updating VMWare Fusion for Apple’s M1 but they cannot yet provide a timeline for when that will be. It is also unclear what exactly it will be. VMware Fusion 12 VMware Fusion delivers the best way to run Windows on the Mac, and the ultimate development and testing tool for building apps to run on any platform. Ready for macOS 11.0 Big Sur, Fusion 12 supports macOS 10.15 Catalina and includes new features for developers, IT. I am planning to upgrade my 2015 MacBook Pro and i like the M1 Mac so far. But would need fusion to run properly on the new laptop.
Best Wechat Mini Programs
Scan the code below for the London audio guide MP.
Wechat Mini Program Code
Launched earlier this month for the cities of Dubai, London, and Sydney, WeChat has plans to be rolling these out for all the major tourist destinations of the world in 2018 together with the support of local tourism boards.
9. Bike Sharing WeChat Mini Programs
No list of best WeChat mini-programs would be complete without mentioning the bike sharing giants of Ofo and Mobike who both have very popular and convenient offerings. Personally, I rarely bother to use the apps because the MPs are simply faster and easier.
Left: Ofo’s mini program / Right: Mobike’s
10. Laptop to WeChat File Syncing Mini Program
Our final mini-program is a complicated one. Entitled 最近文档随身 (Recent Files With You) this MP allows you to sync your recently used files on your desktop or laptop through the cloud over to your WeChat.
It does require you to download and install Tencent’s security manager program on your desktop however, which is probably too big an ask for most people, but for those willing to do so it’s pretty convenient way to ensure that those files you were working on in the office stay with you outside wherever you go to share or refer back to.
The use cases and case studies of mini programs are growing all the time. The format has really started to take off in the 2nd half of 2017. I predict mini programs will have a bright future in 2018, they are clearly not going away and are increasinly important to the future of the WeChat platform.