A successful product will indeed change users' original habits and cultivate new ones, but whether this is a good habit or a bad habit in the traditional sense needs to be defined by ourselves.
It is obvious from the product structure of WeChat reading that WeChat reading is based on social interaction. With discovery as the homepage, show what books your friends in WeChat are reading, which fundamentally solves the pain of finding books and reduces the Amway cost between friends to zero. Based on this, WeChat reading also puts ideas in the tab column at the bottom, which shows the importance of sharing in acquaintances' social interaction. You can always see what books your friends have read and what experiences they have. In addition, the gamification mechanism-leaderboards is added, and users will inevitably compare each other when they see leaderboards. As a result, there will be a list of friends' reading time every week. Because of the advantages of WeChat in traffic, these unique functions based on the friend chain have also become the core competitiveness of WeChat reading.
But in the end, it is still a reading app. What needs to be satisfied most is the user's reading experience. However, I have to admit that WeChat reading has made great efforts in the reading experience. In today's mobile reading market full of pirated books or online novels full of typos, WeChat reading seems to have become a clear stream, because all WeChat reading books are published genuine books, and the typesetting of e-books is basically in accordance with the typesetting of paper books, which greatly restores the real reading experience of paper books, and there are no annoying mistakes such as typos. In interaction, the operation of bookmark drop-down and long-press underline to write ideas will always bring small surprises when used for the first time.
Personally, I prefer the default font for WeChat reading. At present, the default fonts of most reading apps are non-serif fonts such as bold, but WeChat reading broke this convention and used serif fonts in Song Dynasty. In my opinion, serif fonts have a more professional and solemn feeling, but this is just a matter of opinion.
Of course, there is the most important thing-money. Although the cost of e-books is not as high as that of paper books, it is precisely because the value of e-books is not so high that the price will become a major obstacle for users to buy books. Other apps are basically charged in book currency, and WeChat reading is directly charged in book currency, so whether the cost and value are directly proportional is more intuitive. It is worth mentioning that in terms of encouraging new users, WeChat Reading has given new users 10-20 yuan initial book purchase fund, which can meet the needs of reading one or two books. The key is to exchange reading time for money to buy books. Buying books, reading books and buying books form a closed loop. Coupled with the operation activities of buy one get one free, the basic reading needs can be realized for free. Here is a little detail that I like very much. On the title page of every book you buy, there will be a handwritten name and date of purchase, and on the title page of the given book, there will also be someone who gave it to someone one day. I asked many students this question, and they all said that they liked this detail very much, just as we would write our names on the title page when buying books. Indeed, the extreme details will bring word of mouth.
Because they are all genuine e-books, the original bookstore is not perfect, and it may not be able to satisfy all users perfectly. But for the main users of college students and white-collar groups, WeChat reading can basically meet the demand. First of all, the books in the Internet industry are comprehensive, whether it is product design or technology. Moreover, the WeChat reading club will seize the current hot spot to recommend new books on the discovery page, and it can also feel that the strategy behind the book ranking is very strong.
It is precisely because WeChat reading introduces the mechanism of friends+sharing, so there are also some voices that reading is your own business. However, WeChat reading also has the function of private reading, and will not let others see the book you are reading. But I don't think this is a very serious matter. Sharing itself is also an incentive for yourself.
So reading on WeChat is really helpful to me, helping me to make better use of the fragmented time. Of course, this app born with a golden spoon also has some shortcomings, such as fewer books in the mall and insufficient operation. But I think it's only a matter of time. I think WeChat reading is perfect in business model, product structure, core functions and interaction design, and I believe it will occupy its own place in the reading market in the future.