MANILA, Philippines — Mobile app WeChat announced the launch of the latest version of the popular social messaging application on Thursday, revealing three new games, animated stickers, an expanded group chat feature, and a complementary app to enhance photos.
“We want to offer WeChat users a very, very exciting mobile, social experience,” said WeChat business development manager Steve Zheng.
Free for download through the Games section of the app are Gunz Dash, 2Day’s Match, and Craz3 Match.
Side-srolling race game Gunz Dash is, in event host Spanky Enriquez’s words, WeChat’s version of Super Mario. To rescue a girl captured by a vampire, users may assume the character of any of the three heroes as they slide and jump through the obstacle course: “cute and sometimes clumsy” Kattie, “blonde beauty” Nikita, and “passionate and strong” Leo. They are accompanied by pets, as well.
With 2Day’s Match, users match similar tiles as fast as they can to kiddie-party background music.
Craz3 Match, meanwhile, has users matching animal faces in groups of three or more in WeChat’s version of Bejewelled and Candy Crush.
These are only usable when online, however, as they were designed to add to social messaging experience, said Zheng.
Animated stickers also make conversations more fun. Some of the newest characters include Frog and Horse, “crazy friends who escaped from the zoo (who) super love to dance”; Sinkcomic, “famous webcomic artist from Taiwan”; and Puppy, an adorable creature who’ll make a stressful day better.
StoryCam, a free complementary app, allows users to tell the stories behind their photos. They can add real-time, location-based information; alter their photos using any of 13 filters; put watermarks; and share easily through chat, e-mail, or Moments. The latter is similar to profile pages on social media sites, which features snippets of the user’s daily life. Liking and commenting are enabled, too.
Group chat has been expanded to accommodate 100 members, too.
Other changes made include the ability to save users’ favorite text and voice messages, photos, and videos to Favorite Messages, “the first cloud-based storage service on mobile communication apps”; and integration with Gmail.
The new 5.1 version of WeChat may be used on the latest versions of iOS and Android, as well as on BlackBerry, Symbian, and Windows Phone operating systems, too. Downloading is free on these markets, and on PC, as well.
WeChat, developed by Chinese company Tencent International Service Pte. Ltd., has seen a 2,000-percent growth in the Philippines from May, when the first television commercial was rolled out, to August last year. Zheng, however, did not give the numbers of Filipino users.
Nevertheless, the app already has 500 million registered users as of July last year, including 100 million users outside China.
Citing findings from Google Trends, Zheng added that WeChat was the most searched social messaging app, as well as the third most searched mobile app, in the Philippines.
source: interaksyon.com
