What mobile wants
Mobile is eating the world and consumers are spending most of their attention, wallets and lives on and around it. You want a cab? Here’s an Uber for you. Want to say good morning? Just open WeChat or WhatsApp and text right away; or even better — say it with Stickers or Voice messages. You want to send a quick photo to friends? Snapchat is there. Want to get laid? Just Tinder away. Want to stay in a new town for short duration — Airbnb will throw you options quicker and cheaper than regular Hotels; Though HotelsTonight is very much fine if you want to stay at a Hotel only and are running short on consideration time.
Yes the ecosystems and platforms debate has been settled and iOS and Android are the winners. But what is still not clear yet are the routes to success in this world. Therefore, one should look at key user behaviour patterns and the structural evolution of ecosystems, underlying lacunae and the potential opportunities to unlock value.
Mobile is all about instant gratification. If you have a promise to sell, fullfill it to me within 10 seconds. User attention, patience and time are the scarce resources in the mobile world. The reason that photos on mobile has already become such a major communication form is because it just takes two taps and then couple of seconds to take a photo and then share it to social platforms like Instagram, SnapChat, WeChat, WhatsApp or Twitter. Products that are successful on mobile don’t just need to be full stack — a term invented by Chris Dixon which suggests that most successful mobile products today need to provide entire end to end utility of service without the need to exit the app and do another operation to complete the experience; they need to do it real fast and in genuinely delightful ways as well.
However this does not mean every business needs to create a mobile app or even a website. Why? Because an average consumer doesn’t have the patience to download and keep an app on her phone if it’s not going to be used at least once per week. Just like every restaurant does not need to make a website; 95% of the time, a Yelp listing is just fine.
If you are looking to build a utility category product, go make a native app and follow the 10 second rule; else ride on one of the social utility platforms like WeChat/Yelp/Baidu maps/Facebook/Twitter etc. that do a great job of this rule and try to extract the maximum utility out of them. Discovery, attention and trust are hugely difficult problems to solve for most players and thus it’s better to be part of ecosystem than doing it all alone.
Since I work with WeChat (though this piece is a personal blog and has no relation to my employer) I’ll give couple of examples of how brands and services are riding on emerging mobile platforms rather than creating their own apps.
In China and Singapore, one can book a taxi within WeChat through the “Official Account” of the Taxi Service and even do the payment through the app (WeChat has payment integration incorporated in select geographies like China) without the need of installing any separate app. WeChat’s social features ensure that there are lot of virality elements also that Brands can utilize if they execute it right. Similarly through many other WeChat Official Accounts, one can stream and listen to music, buy a McDonald’s burger, or even buy a Coke from a vending machine, without the need of installing a separate app or leaving the WeChat platform.
These are all examples of products and services getting distributed, discovered and benefitting from integrated payments opportunity on top of a platform with over hundreds of millions of users — partially solving the “Google search” or the “Pagerank” problem of mobile, as Benedict Evans has put it succinctly. Even though I’ve given example of WeChat here, this is true for any other major platform also on mobile which could enable access, discovery, attention and wallets of hundreds of millions of users for products and services.
The consumption paradigm on mobile has even altered usage patterns. Whereas on desktop, users would research for longer periods of time on an e-commerce website, it’s more about instant desire and flash sales driven by push notifications on mobile. That’s why it creates a problem for a behemoth like Amazon. And that’s why LINE and WeChat’s flash sales are so successful and even a strongly entrenched player like Alibaba feels threatened from WeChat in China.
We’re just starting on the mobile revolution curve and it’s only now that some of the contours have started to become clear. The future is not about making apps, it’s about mobile. Understand the difference between the two carefully and build your business and service accordingly.
What mobile wants is mobile.
Header image source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/hundreds-thousands-hindus-bathe-ganges-during-magh-mela-1435417
PS: Though this is a personal blog post on evolution of mobile ecosystems, platforms, and discovery of services by users; but in case any of you would like to know more about WeChat Official Accounts, you can send a mail to bd@wechat.com with any enquiries/questions.
