Emergence of a Post-App Era – An Exploratory Case Study of the WeChat Mini-Program Ecosystem

Abstract

Mobile applications (apps) have long fueled the growth of digital business models. However, an increasing reluctance amongst smartphone users to download them has surfaced. For services of infrequent use, it is questionable whether native apps and their respective app stores still offer a suitable development strategy. In China, a novel phenomenon responds to the debate, introducing lightweight micro-apps embedded into the social messaging platform of WeChat. Known as Mini-Programs (MPs), WeChat enables third-party developers to create light apps within its own infrastructure, essentially creating an ecosystem of apps within an app. Supported by an exploratory case study, we shed light on this platform innovation and investigate its implications within the field of mobile platform ecosystems. Our findings implicate that the one-sizefits-all approach of native apps as a general-purpose technology does not meet specific needs of platform users and could be supplemented by innovations such as MPs to fill the gap.

Impulsive purchasing and luxury brand loyalty in WeChat Mini Program

“…WeChat was once described as a cross between Facebook and WhatsApp. Thus, WeChat focused on its core functionalities as a messenger at first and gradually expanded its messenger functions to hold-to-talk voice messaging, group messaging, photo and video sharing (Cheng et al , 2020).…”

“…Since most other fashion brands like SPA, Sports brands are doing e-commerce via Taobao, the world's biggest e-commerce website (owned by Alibaba group), why luxury brands prefer using the WeChat Mini Program over Taobao is worth studying (Azoya Consulting, 2019). However, as a new platform of the retailing platform, until now, most studies have been focusing on the technical aspects of the WeChat Mini Program like designing a mini-program (Zhao, 2019; Wang et al , 2018); the effects on user's travel-related usage intention (Cheng et al , 2020). As a mature e-commerce platform, the effect of WeChat on consumers' purchase intention has been studied in the health product consumption (Wang et al , 2019), word-of-mouth intention (Zeng and Seock, 2019).…”

The effects of WeChat-based educational intervention in patients with ankylosing spondylitis: a randomized controlled trial

“…In the current study, researchers contacted with each patient and sent educational information to patients one by one, which may add significant time and work to the research. WeChat Mini Programs and WeChat Official Account are lightweight micro-apps on WeChat and support multiple functions [45,46]. We suggest that WeChat mini programs and WeChat Official Account can be used to improve the WeChat-based intervention in the future.…”

DNAP: Dynamic Nuchwezi Architecture Platform - A New Software Extension and Construction Technology

“…The best example of a platform-app in the literature is WeChat, which is a social messaging platform with no less than 1 billion active users as of 2018 [16]. WeChat exemplifies the state-of-the-art in designing extensibility inside mobile apps, with the introduction of lightweight "apps within apps" that are better referred to as "mini-programs" [16].…”

“…The best example of a platform-app in the literature is WeChat, which is a social messaging platform with no less than 1 billion active users as of 2018 [16]. WeChat exemplifies the state-of-the-art in designing extensibility inside mobile apps, with the introduction of lightweight "apps within apps" that are better referred to as "mini-programs" [16]. WeChat's mini-programs, also called "applets" [8] are built independently of the main WeChat application, and are mostly developed by the community of users and businesses that leverage the social media application itself.…”