Wechat Mini Apps with Matthew Brennan

Wechat Mini Apps with Matthew Brennan
Matthew Brennan from China Channel joined us to discuss the recent launch of Wechat mini-apps & its impact to their ecosystem of developers & businesses & the implications to iOS & Android app stores in China.

Matthew Brennan from China Channel and a well-known expert on Wechat joined us for an in-depth discussion on the recent launch of the Wechat mini-apps or programs, the philosophy behind them with interpretations on Allen Zhang, the founder of Wechat and their impact to the Wechat developers, businesses & brands living within the ecosystem. He also shared his thoughts on how the Chinese Internet are making huge leaps and bounds from online to offline and provide his perspectives to how Wechat dominate messaging and apps in China.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

  • Matthew Brennan, Co-founder of China Channel dot co (chinachannel.co, @MattyBGooner , Linkedin, Wechat:Yowdy-CQ) [0:39]
    • How did you start you career? [1:28]
    • What brought you to China and eventually set up China Channel there? [2:32]
    • Role and coverage of his role in China Channel [4:10]
    • From different parts of your career, what are the interesting career lessons you can share? [5:07]
  • Wechat Mini Programs [6:14]
    • To start, can you give an introduction of Wechat by Tencent in China? [6:30]
    • Can you share some recent interesting data from Wechat on their user base, usage? [9:12]
    • Recently Wechat has launched Mini Programs, can you briefly describe what they are? [10:40] 
    • How are mini programs actually experienced by users? [14:23]
    • What is China developer community saying about mini programs? [16:18]
    • Impact of Wechat mini-apps to Alipay [18:20]
    • As we understand Wechat has other types of official accounts for businesses: subscription accounts, service & enterprise accounts, what distinguishes mini apps from them? [19:05]
    • How does mini-apps impact the app stores from iOS and Android given that it bypass downloading for the major apps?  [23:28]
    • How does mini-apps impact the rivalry with the other members of BAT or 2nd tier top Chinese companies such as Qihoo and JD? [25:58]
    • What does it mean for businesses that are both leveraging or not leveraging on Wechat mini apps? [27:36]
    • Matthew’s thoughts on Snapchat [29:51]: Snapchat hired Oakley’s head of retail operations & Snapchat acquires Israeli AR company
    • Matthew’s perspectives on China’s Internet ecosystem vs the rest of the world [31:00]

Additional References on Tencent and Wechat:

Podcast Information:

The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack. 

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