After repeated renaming and several iterations, the Wechat key project good Circle finally changed its name to "Circle" under the search page, removing the word "good thing" with obvious recommendation meaning, giving it more room to imagine.

In the upcoming Wechat open class in 2020, Wechat search will make its full debut and disclose the product capabilities and latest developments. The renaming on the eve of the open class means that the circle has found a position in the Wechat search ecology.

The good shopping circle has been transformed from Wechat's "my shopping cart" and was initially positioned as a "shopping moments" where users can browse and buy products recommended by their friends. However, due to privacy concerns and sharing incentives and other issues have not been resolved, and the entrance is too deep and lack of operation, the "shopping moments" has not ushered in a traffic explosion.

In October, the good circle no longer clung to the recommendations of acquaintances, and slogan also changed from "sharing good things with friends" to "discovering a good life". Although it still did not get rid of the color of "carrying goods", more and more circles have shifted from good species to interest in sharing.

Now, Wechat circle has finally got rid of the attribute of "carrying goods" from its name, no longer carries the heavy burden of exploring social e-commerce, and begins to place Wechat's ambition to create another open social product beyond the semi-closed WeChat group and moments.

The entrance of the circle is searched below, it's hard not to think of the posts that grew up with Baidu, Inc. 's search entrance.

It is precisely relying on the screening and aggregation of search keywords that Baidu, Inc. Tieba has become the richest and diverse interest community in the Chinese Internet. Even after the emergence of Weibo Corp and Zhihu Inc., even after the emergence of content censorship and commercialization, it has long since ceased to be the glory of that year, but it still maintains a considerable degree of activity, and there are still new post bars emerging.

Long before Wechat, QQ launched a product for post bars-interest tribes, which guide users out of private QQ groups and join public interest groups.

Due to the lack of search entries such as Tieba, it is impossible to screen interests and gather good contracts through keywords, so the head effect of interest tribes is significant, long-tail tribes lack of traffic, and over time they turn to entertainment and fan circle, and the content is low-quality and hydrated seriously. the limelight has long been surpassed by the later "expansion".

The reason why Baidu, Inc. Tieba has changed from prosperity to decline is that search is no longer the first entrance to the mobile Internet. Interest groups have also gradually shifted from keyword aggregation to aggregation around content and self-media.

Bilibili Inc. and Xiao Hongshu are representatives of content aggregation, while people with the same interests gather around Weibo Corp and the various self-media on the official account.

However, the voice of "small transparency" is difficult to be heard in these places, and the interest community of users' equal communication such as post bar and group is still irreplaceable.

Can Wechat recreate a post by searching the entry?

From the early establishment mechanism of Wechat circle, it is more like a new traffic pool of official account, helping operators to enhance fan stickiness and realize content cash.

The circle owner can initiate topic interaction, welfare delivery, or fragmented output in the circle. At present, the Wechat circle is centralized, with high privileges for owners and administrators, and contributions from ordinary members are subject to strict review. The circle has become a "sales circle" for the founders.

If the circle is only a tool in the hands of the media, the space for imagination is limited. So, can you turn official fans into an interest group through circles? After all, official account fans have formed a community that can't see each other.

At present, it seems that the attribute of the official account has also been extended to the circle, and the communication behavior between fans has not yet been formed.

Can Wechat circle, like the post bar, use search keywords as a link to gather the crowd? From the test, the circle has appeared in some Wechat search results and ranked high, which is very similar to the mechanism of Baidu, Inc. post bar.

However, people's search habits on Wechat are very different from those on Baidu, Inc.. Wechat search the main search as a service, search is the scene, mainly connecting users and services, content providers. From the point of view of interest, once people find the corresponding Mini Program and official accounts, they no longer need to search frequently to get information.

This also means that it is difficult for Wechat circles to correspond to the real world, as Tieba does. Judging from the names of more than 8000 circles, Wechat circles are not named after keywords, but are played by the owners at will. Different from the decentralization of Mini Program, Wechat circle has a central discovery square, where users can find the circle of interest by category.

In May this year, Byte Jump quietly launched an interest social product, Flying chat, in an attempt to cut into instant messaging from an interest community, but it was only a flash in the pan. Today, can Wechat succeed in moving in the opposite direction, moving from instant messaging to social interestings?

Even if it's hard to create another post bar, the circle can still be seen as a "patch" made by Wechat to make up for the limitations of WeChat group application scenarios. As I said when commenting on the boast group:

The WeChat group is very difficult to precipitate the relationship within the group into an interest community. In fact, the defects in the design of the information mechanism of the WeChat group (unable to communicate in layers and unable to reply within the group) make the group communication invalidate if the number of members exceeds a certain number. Except for the neat formation within the company group to praise the wisdom of the leadership.

It is almost impossible for WeChat groups to precipitate and discuss knowledge, closed attributes also make it a "content black hole", and high-quality content cannot be searched by the outside world, which is also the reason for the rise of social tools such as Little Secret Circle and Gosling. However, they have evolved into "reapers" from the media.

WeChat groups are born for instant communication, and free organization and high flexibility are also its greatest advantages. however, most WeChat groups that "start because of things" do not "end up". In the end, it is reduced to a "zombie group" in which a small number of people post advertisements and buy links. Before the emergence of circles, groups were almost the only option to build communities on Wechat, albeit poorly functioning and uncontrollable.

The emergence of the circle can remove some of the burden from the WeChat group and let the corresponding scene find a more appropriate form of community. As for how the Wechat circle will evolve, it may need to be as patient as we are with other Wechat functions.