Mini Apps on Messaging Applications
With advanced A2P messaging capability, RCS Business Messaging offers significant advantages and brings great potential commercial opportunities to MNOs and the wider ecosystem.
However, Instant Messaging (IM) services have gone beyond the basic A2P messaging. In China, for example, the two most popular OTT applications, WeChat and Alipay, are reinforced with web based applications called Mini Apps which are incorporated within the IM clients. These OTT applications are seeing huge benefits as a result of this aggressive effort.
Mini Apps are web applications coupled in IM clients, with the following characteristics:
- Specific pages or areas of IM clients are exclusively reserved to list, search and use Mini Apps. Thus, they can be activated without leaving the IM clients.
- Mini Apps are usually HTML5 based and are able to execute within the IM clients, similar to executing on a web browser. Thus, a wide range of functions with user friendly interfaces can be integrated into IM clients by using the features of HTML5 standard.
- Additional functions from IM clients such as SSO (Single Sign On) can be integrated to Mini Apps.
In this case study from China Mobile, learn about use cases, business drivers and the user experience for Mini Apps.