manticore-media

[manticore-media]

SuperAPP./ Engagement technology

A monster cannot win if you do not know what it consists of. So, the question is how is the SuperAPP system built?

This post will be about technologies vk-super apps that make our lives easier and more transparent and mix the roles of content creators and consumers. I will try to enter a brief description of two cases, but from this they will not lose quality! First, we'll figure out what kind of technology is VK-Connect and how it makes everything transparent.

A few days ago, I open the AliExpress service with VK-App from the girlfriend's phone. Before me, nobody came to this mini service from this phone. The window "VK-Connect" pops up. I clicked further and found myself on the main page with products. I was surprised that immediately after entering the application I could place an order and I did not need to register. I did not need to register, because it is with the help of VK-Connect system that I now have an account for all the services that are connected to VK-Super ecosystem. If you think about it, such a system scares me. My data from the social network is now available to mini-services, which makes it possible to select the most personalized content specifically for me. However, this condition did not scare me much because I became interested in the product that was picked up for me (on the example of Aliexpress).

 Another case  with exploring technology occurred when I opened the application, which tells about the mini services in the Vk. And it was one of the mini-services, created by developers. Another case occurred when I opened the application, which tells about the mini services in the VK. And it was one of the mini-services, created by developers. It was a simple application-guide "how to use". The focus of this guide was not only on users, but also on content makers. On the pages of the guide were such phrases as "convenient to use - you can always share with friends", "useful for business - simple development and monetization". The final step of the Guide was a proposal to create my own mini-application as a user. I was interested in this proposal, but I did not use it immediately. I decided to wait for a while. However, it became interesting to me to create my own mini-service.

[manticore-media]

SuperAPP./Uniformical Design_Part3

Previous Post: https://goo.su/2opZ

The third post in the series about design starts right now. This time I will take the Aliexpress case and the Aliexpress mini service to VK.In the past post, we settled on a system that depersonalizes the original design idea of the original application under the general motif of SuperApp design.

In the past, I used Aliexpress a lot, and now I open it a several times a week as well. For some reason, both the computer version and the mobile one were associated with the materially existing phenomenon of the street market - the banter. A lot of offers, different products are nearby. Discounts everywhere, hundreds of stores selling the same goods, incomprehensible names and descriptions:

When I came to Aliexpress in VK-App, I saw the same top panel. Smaller number of offers with larger size of each object, only rounded edges:

It may have looked more pleasant, but in the case of the original aliexpress, more of everything placed on the screen using the maximum space gives more information than the mini service from SuperApp. Saving a common modular system of VK leads to the destruction of some sense and purpose of Aliexpress.

Thus, the variation of "modular" design system VK-SuperApp changes not only the appearance of the original services, but also deconstructs the original idea of service design, adjusting them to its own integral ecosystem and "depersonalizing" them. Thus, Aliexpress, known for its rich information content and a bunch of offers, becomes like an ordinary online store. And the usual location of the menu of cab applications undergoes changes, even when the same service “citimobile” from the same MailRU keeps this design paradigm.

[manticore-media]

SuperAPP./Uniformical Design_Part2

Previous Post: https://goo.su/2oPz

In this post, which opens the main part about design, I am going to look at the VK-Taxi design case. But I will start not with it but with analyzing the type of applications ordered by cab.

Now you see in front of you a standard version of the application for ordering a cab. In the screenshots I presented the application "citimobile" (which is the same VK-Taxi in fact, as they use the same cab and are the brainchild of MailRU - but today is not about it).  The main fragments here are a map, when you open the application, a line to enter the address at the bottom, and the side menu, which can be called by clicking on a button. In this style is decorated not only a city car, but also Uber, inDriver, Gett, and Yandex (before it became a superapp).

As for the VK-Taxi, we are initially met by the same map, but there is no menu on the side, but there is a top panel that reminds us of the name of the mini-application in which we are located. The checkbox next to that name hides the functions that were assigned to the menu on the side of the previous example. Also, the three-point menu and the close button appear on the right

When you compare the first option with the second one, it becomes clear that the functionality does not change, but the design changes. The VK-Taxi variant is unusual due to the upper menu. I found such a menu in 90% of the SuperApp services. This design is also combined with the general modular design from VK, which uses rounded corners and space saving. Note that the side menu in CityMobile leaves a lot of free space, while in Vk-Taxi everything looks compact. Thus, the standard design of a cab application undergoes changes due to the power of integration into a common SuperApp ecosystem.

From a user's point of view, I wasn't used to seeing this design of a cab application. And it was a bit uncomfortable because after the habit of standard cab application design, the design of a VK-Taxi looks weird.

[manticore-media]

SuperAPP./ Uniformical Design_ _Part1

We create a world based primarily on what we see.

I have already said so many words about the powers and abilities of a creature called VK SuperAPP, but only a glimpse of its appearance, I always touched upon the subject of its appearance, making quick conclusions. Now I want to plunge into the theme of design, as the whole environment, as well as individual services included in it.

However, this topic is very extensive, as design is the most extensive aspect that I have to meet all the time.

Therefore, several posts will be dedicated to this topic. In this part, which is an introduction, I will take a look at the changes in the design and perception of the overall Super App environment and also introduce a small context for the main part where I will focus on analyzing and comparing the design of the "original" application and the same but as a service in the VK Super App.

In one of the previous posts, I had already touched on the design of the entire VK-SuperApp environment. At that time, I highlighted chaoticness as one of the main characteristics of this environment. Since then, several updates to VK-SuperApp have been released, including the design. Already now, the design environment for SuperApp does not look so chaotic. Did this update affect or did I start to consider the design convenient after frequent use?  Probably, these two aspects have influenced my perception.

Now the design and positioning of sectors with services looks like a variation of a modular system. By modular system, I mean the arrangement of objects according to the grid, which divides all these objects into each other equal sectors.

When I started to look at and think about this design without knowing it was modular, the first thing that came to my mind was Microsoft's modular design, recreated in Windows 8.

I still can not call the MailRU’s Super App design the embodiment of a modular system in its classic form. However, this comparison in my perception of the classic modular system is important, as it indicates that I find this design comfortable now, because the modular system is associated with convenience and rational approach to the use of space. Still, I do not reject my past thesis of chaos, because inside the sections the chaos is still there.

As I said in the previous posts, VK-SuperApp combines different services by their nature. However, I did not go over to specific examples of services and did not try to categorize them. Some of these services are and exist only in the VK-app, although they have analogues (Prometheus, Checklist, Wheel of Fortune, etc.). Others are separate and independent services included in the superapps (Aliexpress, Citimobile aka. VK-Taxi, Delivery Club aka. VK-Food, Skyeng, McDonalds, etc.). In this post I will not pry into economic subtleties and understand what service belongs to whom and what are the terms of cooperation between MailRu and the companies that own these services. My interest is the design aspect of the services in their own environment (application) and in VK SuperApp. It will be the topic of next post.

[manticore-media]

SuperAPP./ It is (not) an illusion of benefit

The main task of the company providing the service is to lure and keep the client until the client wants to continue using the service without pressure and treats. How to keep the client the easiest? One of the main ways is to make this service more profitable than others. It is very easy to do, if you provide just very favorable conditions of daily use for all customers - it gives rise to competition, which leads to even more advantageous offers from a competitor. However, there is also an opportunity to organize a promotion, where the real benefit does not go to everyone, but only parts, but the conditions that allow anyone to win - create the illusion of benefits that may not happen. This way influences the competition less and keeps the users only while the illusion persists. Yet, the usual services that offer only a certain service are limited in scope. They can not create a promotion where everyone wins, but it will not affect the competition. And then the question arises - and does this conditionality change in the case of SuperAPP?

It happened last week - in SuperApp Vkontakte on the main page, when you open the services tab, a new service has appeared. It was called "Wheel of Fortune". As it may seem, it was a temporary action on Vkontakte's Birthday. This service worked like a roulette: you can win one small prize for scrolling or a ticket, which increases your chances of winning a super prize. This week, the campaign has already ended, but the service is not lost. Now, going into it, you can find this inscription:

Now, this service is not a one-time event, but it is part of the general mechanism of the whole system aimed at retaining the client. I would leave this case if not for this feature. Is it possible that actions in the case of SuperAPP benefit everyone, but do not affect the competitiveness while maintaining the common logic of existence as a whole service: a system that both one and many at once? It was such a long introduction. And now we will move on to the main part where I will describe all the conventions of interaction with this action of gifts. This description will consist of collecting all the notes that I took while observing the development of this roulette. Let us take a look at the manticore's head this time.

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The first time I noticed the emergence of roulette on the main thing, I had a class. It was the end of the class, so my attention immediately attracted such an interesting thing. I opened it and read the conditions. The essence was that you are given an attempt to spin the drum and win a prize (a discount on the use of the application partner, a bonus on the use of services Vkontakte). There was also a counter at the top of the screen until the time of the Super-prize draw, among which were very expensive things, such as a TV, an electric scooter, a laptop, headphones, and six months of free trips to VK-Taxi (all were quite expensive). I spun the drum at the same moment for the first time and won a bonus in the game, which is on the list of services Vk. I had no interest in this game, but there were no attempts to spin the drum. It was necessary to wait for 7 days. However, there was an option to earn extra points for performing tasks that were divided into the following categories: Invite friends to the game, try to use a certain service in the list of VK Super app, donate money to charity, buy stickers for the messenger VK. Since one attempt was not enough for me, and the prize did not satisfy me, I decided to perform tasks that I can: I invited 3 friends to roulette and donated 100 rubles for charity. For this, I got another opportunity to spin roulette 7 times which I spent at once. As a result, more than half of the prizes I won were bonuses to various services and games of VK SuperAPP; there were a couple of tickets to increase the chance of winning a super prize. There were also several discounts to other applications that were not on the VK-Super app list. However, these were free periods of use of applications that already give the same free bonus when you start using them. And yet I was very happy, winning a month of access to the application of audiobooks for free.

The following week I almost did not launch Wheel of Fortune, as I was charmed with my prizes, and I had no opportunity to spin anymore. However, I noticed that I started more often to explore different services in VK. If I ordered a cab, I opened VK-Taxi, and if I was satisfied with the price, I drove it without even looking through the other offers.

The next time I opened Roulette in a week when my attempt was restored. Super prizes have already disappeared from the list of prizes, except for free trips to VK-Taxi. Having tried once, having won the issue of the magazine in the service Vogue, which is part of the VK SuperAPP application list, I completed the task and used the service "VK-Checklist", and donated another 100 rubles to try again. The percentage of bonuses for the apps was even higher than last time. Now it was all 100% of the services related to VK. But I did not need all of them either. I have these gifts lying there and now. I have not even activated them. Still, after trying to use the checklist, I opened the application a few times again and used it because it was convenient. I switched from the services of other companies and now, I only use the VK.

For the third time, I opened the roulette yesterday. It was already missing from the main screen then, but it could also be found in the list of applications. The action has already ended, but there was a promise to continue it already on "New Year". My first thought was that with such a frequency of lottery I will win one day.

It was a more or less complete description of the whole context of my interaction with the Wheel of Fortune action. Now let us move on to the reflection of this experience.

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The problem with this roulette is that everyone will win. Just a question - what? But it is impossible to win anything because there is no such field on the wheel of fortune. Even if I did not need the prize, I still felt like I was winning, because I gave almost nothing for it. I only had to perform tasks, and charity is not the same as paying for attempts. This feature changes the very meaning of roulette and holiday actions, which do not affect the competition, because not everyone wins. In my opinion, this feature is an advantage of super apps, which can provide prizes from different services, unlike the service with one service.

Also, I am a sign that the bonuses for different services are next to each other on the wheel of fortune, combines them into one tightly connected system. This is also supported by the fact that some tasks were aimed at disclosure of new services of Super-App to the user. For using one service, you get a bonus in another, where you can get a bonus for the third. Thus, using one service, you get a bonus for the other service. This is also an advantage, but perhaps it is useless. However, it is no longer an illusion of benefit, as in the service of one service. You get the bonus not even just for one service, but for the whole system of VK-SuperAPP.

If to reason logically, I was in a minus of 200 rubles, because I did not win anything really valuable to me. But I feel that I am in the plus.

Also, the irregularity of this action creates a feeling to stay in the plus, relying on hope. Thus, the VK-super app preserves the logic of the whole system but can break the rule of the action, where not everyone wins.

[manticore-media]

SuperAPP./ The chaos of a generous system_VK-app

It is already a week since I began to notice SuperAPPs at every moment of my life. I realized that to understand this beast, which I encountered, will be possible only with concrete analysis of cases of collision with it. Therefore, in this post I would like to share my experience of using VK to order a cab in a detailed way.

The clock was about 11:45. I had breakfast and scrolled the feed at the VK, sometimes responding to messages. At this time I already knew that I would be late for the meeting, which was scheduled for 12:00. I decided to check the prices for a cab - and it would be logical to immediately open the VK-Taxi at the same time. However, I closed dialogues in VK, which this week was renamed to VK-Messenger, and opened YandexGO to order a cab. I believe that this irrational behavior was explained by the fact that, in my experience, a cab from Yandex arrives faster and cheaper, because I have a discount on the Yandex-Plus subscription. And yet, seeing the price of 246 rubles, even then I decided to open and check the price from VK-Taxi. It was cheaper for 100rub. , so I decided to stop at VK. But before just ordering a cab, I remembered that somewhere on the same page of services from VK there is an application, ordering a cab through which you can get stickers for VK-Messenger. I knew that I was late, but it was ok to me to search for this service for 5 minutes. Unfortunately, because of the chaotic arrangement of all the services together, I could not find what I was looking for. However, I managed to stumble across services that may have been of no interest to me until the moment I saw them. For example, I opened the service "VK-Prometheus" and began to read the terms of receiving the light "Actual" for the community. Then I opened the standard service VK-Taxi and ordered it. In a minute and a half there was a car and I went to a meeting. There are two interesting things from the above story - 1) the bonus program in the form of stickers, 2) the randomness of services. As for the first one, it seems to be a frequent practice in our world, when the audience is attracted by bonuses. But still, it takes a completely new form in a single system of SuperApp. The user gets the bonus in a completely different service, as it goes from VK-Taxi to VK-messenger, which is very convenient for developers, because there is an incredible number of opportunities for the bonus program. In comparison, there is an application for ordering a cab "Taxi_maxim", they also give a bonus in the form of stickers - but in this context it is useless, because these stickers are limited to the frames of the application for ordering a cab - and it is unnecessary to use them when ordering a cab. The second point - the chaotic location of the services seems inconvenient, but this way you can find something new for yourself. I doubt that such a randomness turned out by chance - because the most popular and major services are not hidden in this system of clutter. Instead, the most necessary services are separated in a separate frame, among all the other chaos. It's just this chaous that makes us find a new one interesting service for us. Finishing this post, I would like to say that among all SuperApps in Russia today - VK stands out the most by its variety of services in one application. Also, as I have already mentioned, the old Dialogs were renamed into "VK-Messenger". This form of names (Vk-Taxi, Vk-Weather, Vk-Health, etc.) retains its original appearance, as such services are called in the operating system of a smartphone, but at the same time the prefix "VK" reminds about being included in a single system. It is interesting.

[manticore-media]

SuperAPP./one-application life

This time I met a beast that has already taken over most of our lives - and his name is SuperAPP. But before I start to figure out what this phenomenon is, I'll enter some context.

Today I met with my cousin. Six months ago he left for Moscow to work in MailRu. Since that time, we rarely manage to sit in a quiet environment and chat. The only moment when we can do this is when he comes to visit his family in Tyumen. Just today we had such an opportunity. We agreed to go to the lounge, setting the meeting time at 5:30. However, it was already 5:25 when I just left the house. I understood that it will not be possible to get to the lounge by public transport, as I didn't want to delay much. Then I decided to order a cab. To do this, I took the phone (where it was already open VK), quit the dialogue, and go to the tab "services" in the same VK-APP When I had already ordered a cab, I stopped and thought, "how wonderful it is that VK has become so multitasking. BUT. Can I say with certainty now that this is a social network, as I remember it back in 2011 or even in 2015?

VK was a social network created by Pavel Durov as a Russian copy of Facebook. Later, it was bought by Mail Ru and then everything started to change.However, it began to be felt most acutely in the first half of 2020.  At first, I heard about these changes in May from the same brother. He shared that MailRU has a plan to create something that combines different services in one application. And then such services as VK-Taxi, VK-Clips (Analog Tick-Tock), Work Search, VK Food and so on began to appear. Now the services tab looks something like this:

"There are almost everything here!" - my first thought when I opened this tab and started analyzing. Weather, Schedule of Sports matches, Birthdays of my friends, Signing petitions, Tests of friendship... All in one. Completely different services are separated in cells, and similar things are all together. Why do I even need other applications when I have VK-App?

Let's go back to today. When I already met my brother and we discussed different topics, I shared with him my observation about the changes of VK. “Да, да, СуперАПП" - he answered me. Then he told me that more and more SuperApps appear. Only recently, Sber (formerly Sberbank) announced its SuperApp, which shares the same services as MailRU with their VK-App. YandexGo (a mixture of all Yandex services) has already failed in major-cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, as people began to get lost in the number of services (in Moscow, much more services are available than in Tyumen).

So how does a beast like SuperAPP behave next? I still don't know many of its features, but let's keep watching this object, because its case is not closed yet...

[manticore-media]

My TV is not TV more?

I have not used the TV since I was a child. At that time it was useless without a console or cable. And only recently I bought a TV again. It was a thin screen with full functionality of a nowadays TV: smart-tv, internet connection, Bluetooth, etc. My motivation was due to the need to connect a game console that suddenly appeared in my possession, and it would be more convenient to watch films with my girlfriend.  And now for two months, I enjoy an excellent purchase with a satisfied mine: in the mornings I and my girlfriend watch a review of news from Lebedev or Usachev, in the afternoon I turn on the lo-fi radio-stream while working, and in the evenings we can play or watch a movie. 

It would seem that heaven on earth. But a week ago, the end of the world of the contemporary man happened! The Internet in the whole house has disappeared for the whole day!!! Only at that moment, I decided to switch to cable television... and only then I noticed that I had never connected it all the time. Also, it will be hard to watch cable-channels because, the TV remote contains only a few buttons, which do not even dial the number of the desired channel. Well, I didn't get confused and played PacMan and other games installed on the TV from Google Play. 

However, it is fabulous how TV has changed in the last ten years. Earlier, it was nothing more than a screen. In the case of cable disconnection, it didn't even make sense to turn it on... Now I can even play a game on the TV, for which I would have needed a game console 10 years ago.

It's convenient. Very handy. Even weird, how convenient it is!

What kind of monster is hanging on my wall? It's like a manticore from ancient legends, composed of parts of different animals. And how many more such beasts surround me?  My journey in the world of strange new media begins with this moment.