Chinese Messaging App WeChat Receives Snap-Like ‘Stories’ Feature
- WeChat has become the latest in line to receive a Stories feature for over 1 billion monthly users.
- The app seeks to catch up to popular messaging app TikTok in the fierce social app market with billions of users.
- The new feature is being called “Time Capsule,” and it is one of the biggest updates the app has received this year.
With TikTok taking the social media sphere by storm, popular Chinese messaging app WeChat has been frustrated with the lack of major updates. The Tencent-owned app commands over a billion active users all over the world, and it just received one of its biggest updates ever.
Dubbed “Time Capsule,” WeChat now has access to a ‘Stories’ feature similar to Snap. WeChat is by no means lacking features with over 1 million apps that can be downloaded as plugins allowing users to perform a multitude of tasks including shopping, booking cabs, making restaurant appointments and more. However, when it comes social features, there was a dearth of updates and users wanted the app to be on par with its competitors.
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Unlike other apps, WeChat has been fairly hesitant to any major user interface overhauls due to founder Allen Zhang being heavily invested in his app’s user experience. Prior to the ‘Time Capsule’ update, users were limited to sharing their videos with friends, group chats or in their Moments tab. However, the new feature changes all of that allowing users to post videos publicly.
With Instagram moving towards privacy with its latest update, WeChat is opening up its sharing feature so users can share videos publicly. Time Capsule is not trying to compete with TikTok. Instead, it chooses to better the existing video sharing experience. It is also rumored that the update was released to compete against ByteDance's TikTok, another app that is growing in popularity. Despite complaints from users, WeChat continues to dominate the social messaging world especially in its home country China and a number of South-East Asian countries.
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