Recently, Beijing Yidong Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd., the operator of Zheli( Zheli), announced that it has removed the app from China's app market and voluntarily suspended new user registration to improve the experience of existing users and resolve various disputes.
Gel is a meta-universe app featuring "acquaintance socializing" that allows users to share their daily lives with friends and shows the user's approximate location, such as at school, at work, or near a shopping mall.
According to gel's official introduction, "Here, no grouping, no shielding, no three days to see, you and your good friends can really be yourself together, here is only your own and your best friend's friendship apartment." ”
Previously, some users claimed that the app collected their information without permission when it shared links with friends through third-party platforms such as WeChat and QQ.
In response, the company responded that the main reason for the removal is various stability issues such as slow loading time and continuous crashes, rather than violating user privacy.
Figure | Announcement of Gel (Source: Gel)
On January 19, Gel was officially launched, followed by five version updates and the top app store in China. For a new piece of software that is new to the app market, this is enough to make a very impressive impression.
On February 11, the download volume of gel reached 435,000, ranking first in the download list of The App Market in China, and WeChat retreated to second place.
It is worth mentioning that this is the first time since 2019 that an app has taken the first place in the download list from WeChat and maintained it for three days.
Echo Gong, an analyst at Market Research Coresight Research, said, "I love the app's design and youth culture, but there's still a lot of room for improvement in functionality. ”
It is understood that the main interface of gel has 5 menus, namely home page, push, release, chat and personal homepage, which can provide users with social chat, release dynamics and face pinching and dressing up.
Gel allows users to choose whether to locate their own location when publishing a feed. However, considering the protection of user privacy, the final location display is near a certain community or a building, and will not be a more specific coordinate.
In addition, Gel provides users with stylish avatars and clothing options, where users can create their own virtual characters by pinching their faces and changing outfits.
Moreover, like WeChat, Gel allows users to set various states such as touching fish, eating, and playing games. Different from WeChat, Gel will add corresponding actions and props according to the state set by the user.
(Source: Gel)
In addition, if users want to invite new friends to join the gel, they can take channels such as WeChat, QQ and copy links. It should be noted that the maximum number of friends that the app sets for the user is 50.
However, since WeChat does not support direct link invitations, users have to open their browsers to complete the process, which can lead to a more time-consuming experience.
Echo Gong also added that the gel is not diverse enough, its communication function is still limited to photos and microblogs, while mainstream social platforms can provide formats such as long text, short videos and emojis.
Now, after many users are attracted by the gel, they will show their status and image through a custom avatar and share interesting daily life. But then the feedback was: after pinching the face, after playing for a while, I felt bored and didn't know what to play next.
In fact, if it is to meet the needs of acquaintance social networking, many people will still choose mature social products such as WeChat and QQ, and Gel still lacks irreplaceable functions.
But it is undeniable that the emergence of gel has further promoted the meta-universe boom that is forming momentum in China. The concept of a "metacosm" began to explode in the last two years, and it is derived from a science fiction novel called Snow Crash released in 1992.
In China, in addition to gels, many Internet technology giants are also competing to enter the track of meta-universe social applications.
In 2021, Baidu launched the Xi'an APP. According to the official, "Xi'an has created a multi-person interactive space that spans virtual and real and lasts forever." "With the support of hardware technologies such as headphones and microphones, users can shop, interact, watch exhibitions, listen to concerts and other activities in the app, and have an immersive audio visual experience."
(Source: Hiram)
On February 10, Tencent's QQ team launched a new product "3D Super QQ Show", providing users with functions such as dressup change, motion capture, face patching and paradise world. Here, users can explore and build unique personal homes as avatars, and conduct online virtual social networking.
It is reported that ByteDance will also release a meta-universe social application called "Party Island", allowing users to become virtual characters to interact with friends in real time, participate in online activities and even go shopping together. According to Tianyan, the copyright of the iOS and Android versions of the "Party Island" software was registered and approved in December 2021.
In the United States and Canada, the concept of metaverse social apps is also popular. In December 2021, Meta opened Horizon World, a social platform for users over the age of 18 in both countries, where users can participate in games, post original content, and chat in the square, which is the company's first meta-universe product.
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reference:
https://technode.com/2022/02/14/chinas-viral-metaverse-social-app-zheli-halts-downloads/