Weechat And Why It isn't Succeeding In Africa

WeChat is blazing around the globe caring very little of
what is in its path. In the last year, the platform’s global
launch has seen it begin to weave itself into the fabric of
Africa’s tech ecosystem and platforms of choice.
I recently started using the platform. Before now, it held
no real appeal for me — none of the people I would
ordinarily IM with are on the platform and sharing
seemed futile if my crowd wasn’t there to share with. That
said, the platform has managed to attract a fair number
of users, but what are they doing there? What should they
be doing there? If you spend any time with the tech elite or
the tech obsessed, they will likely tell you that it’s stodgy.
I think the common phrase is that it’s a smartphone app
that behaves like a feature phone app.
“It is a necessary evil,” Brett Loubser Head of WeChat
Africa tells me. “When you are developing an app that
works across many platforms and also compensating for
older model devices, you have to make some sacrifices.”
This is WeChat’s problem — for too long it has positioned
itself as a chat platform, something it is now trying to
change. The re-positioning of WeChat in Africa has been
ongoing for the last few months. The new message is that
it is a social media platform. In many ways it is, but
this again is still part of what is holding it back on the
continent.
WeChat is bogged down by the legacy of its roots. In
China, this service is undisputed as the king because its
challengers are nowhere to be found. In Africa, all its
challengers arrived years earlier. For Africa, WeChat needs
a new strategy.
What seems to be working for the platform right now is its
resurgence as a media player, with maverick online radio
station Cliffcentral for instance. Content works well on this
platform because it compresses everything, making it more
data friendly than most apps. For Africa content is key.
The time of the second screen: feeding the reality
television hunger
Africans are hungry for content, truly. The success of
Nollywood and the subsequent success of iROKO TV is not
an accident. That market always and readily existed.
Media consumed by Africans is often imported and very
few Africans get the pleasure of watching themselves on
screen. Nollywood and the local film industries popping
up around the continent are changing that. The creators
of these experiences provided a platform for Africans to see
themselves on screen and, in turn seized the attention of
the audience.
As it stands, the audience has become accustomed to
watching television with their mobile device in hand,
commenting and chronicling what it is happening on
screen. For some, this is a good thing but for others, this is
spoiler central. This is a space WeChat works well in. No
one has really cracked the second screen business with a
fully-immersed experience. You can tweet and hashtag
and yes, soon you will be able to vote using Twitter, but
when will this make it to Africa’s shores? WeChat
currently does this with a few reality shows and offers the
ability to vote, interact and consume content. This is
where it really needs to focus its attention on. It seems to
be working for it.
“When we partnered with Big Brother we didn’t expect too
much,” Loubser confesses. “But the level of engagement was
incredible. We beat out all the other platforms in two
weeks.”
The engagement is contained within the platform between
people watching and people interested in it.
“There is a powerful idea that shows need to start looking
at,” he says. “To deliver content to users and give them the
opportunity to participate in real-time.”
Facebook and Twitter offer the same in-app browser
experience as WeChat does, but Loubser argues that it’s
different. There is a level of interactivity and audience
participation that these other social networks just haven’t
been able to crack. The ability to vote and truly engage
with the content and the show in-app without (at some
point) being forced into another platform.
One app to contain them all
That’s something significant WeChat may have stumbled
on. While most companies have begun the great
unbundling and forcing users into new apps to experience
different features, WeChat has contained everything in
one place. Some agency person (possibly) got together with
all the brands and told them that “they had to have
apps.” Why, I ask, why do they all have to have apps?
Our attentions are already spread thin, that’s why most
apps end up in the app graveyard. This is something
WeChat could really look at as it ramps up its services. It’s
already pretty good at compressing content, which means
you are not using that much data. The problem here of
course, is convincing brands that this a good idea, to
create a more engaging and useful service for their
consumers through this platform.
“What we are looking to do is build in customer service
chatrooms for brands,” says Loubser. “Rather than have
customers spend hours on the phone wasting their airtime,
you can have a conversation about their problem in real-
time.”
Moving towards utilities
If you look at what WeChat has done with M4Jam
(Money for Jam) and what is happening with Cliffcentral
and the millions of podcasts it pushed out since launch.
There is an audience that already exists — they just need
more things to do. There is huge potential for the platform
to work as a utility platform. If I can make money off
WeChat using M4Jam, why can I not, in the same breath,
send money or pay for things with it?
“We will soon become a transaction platform,” Loubser
explains. “If you think about what we do already like
voting it is a transaction. Those votes count towards
someone’s future so you have to take it seriously. It is as
serious a transaction as sending someone money.”
When it comes to mobile payments a platform, Africa
hasn’t really won with the unified payment system that
can work across borders. This is mostly due to regulation
and banks. WeChat has a lot pull (and cash) to fight the
battle that many startups cannot.
WeChat has built trust through other interactions on the
platform, such as voting and making money through
M4Jam and, according to Loubser, when the money is
finally plugged in the behaviour already exists with the
users.
If we go back to mobile payments, while they were still
figuring out this platform, could they not have perhaps
replaced my wallet and made payments much easier for
me? Take SnapScan for instance: using QR codes, which
WeChat does so well already, and existing credit cards, is
it possible for WeChat to work as a unified payment
gateway? It already exists in most markets in Africa so the
users are there. Almost every country accepts MasterCard or
Visa, and payments via QR Code has been proven to work.
WeChat is not a chat platform and I will likely never use
it for chatting. It’s not a social media platform — I
already have too many of those. What I need is an app
container that I can consume content on, a utility engine
I can pay electricity with and a payment gateway.

CREDITS=MEMEBURN.COM