Tiktok, the entrancing app that makes it so hard to stop scrolling, has taken US social media by storm over the past 3 years. In 2020, TikTok was the most profitable app in the year when many of us were stuck at home trying to pass time and connect through whipped coffee, dance routines and challenges. Let’s take a look at the social media app’s journey to being the disruptor that has Facebook scrambling to adapt to it’s formatting.
The original app Douyin was launched in 2016 by AI company ByteDance to the Chinese market, where a shift to mobile entertainment was thriving. While there were already similar apps to Douyin in 2016, the one thing that stood out was the lack of recognition for those with regular users with small followings. Celebrities would gain likes and popularity through short-form video apps, but regular users would not get the same validation. Douyin saw this as a problem and introduced their app with a recommendation based algorithm that provides equal probability to it’s users to gain engagement, which is different to apps like Instagram which defaults to showing you the pages you follow. ByteDance received $7.4Billion in funding through investors such as SoftBank and General Atlantic from 2012 – 2018. Douyin grew their initial user-base through intergrating WeChat and QQ invitations and campus influencers from art and music schools in China. While Musical.ly had existed in the US since 2014, it was limited to short form lip-syncing videos. ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in 2017 for $1Billion and shifted the focus of the app from music and dance to overall entertainment by introducing editing tools, and AR filters to create what we know now as Tiktok. Musical.ly received $150.4Million in funding from 2014-2016.
From a 2019 TikTok pitch deck found on Scribd, it is evident that the app has a lot to offer in regards to not only entertainment but audience and ad offerings. With 800 million global users and an array of ad offerings, the reason for the apps success is apparent.
Hi Hope,
I can disagree with the first sentence you made, “enhances on the entrancing app that makes it so hard to stop scrolling”. You made a really important point about how Douyin noticed that regular users lacked recognition especially when they post same content or better content than celebrities. TikTok has made it easy for people to get recognized with the kind of algorithm they have installed. It’s not easy to create content, people have true talent they can share to world and they will be happy if over millions of people could see what they are capable of.
Also your website is nice!
Hello Sunrise,
Tiktok really is that app where you can’t help but keep scrolling! Especially because each video is so short and you can easily keep scrolling if the video does not catch your eye, you can easily waste an hour away without even realizing it. Unfortunately I am a victim of that, but I think Tiktok really did help with our boredom, especially during the time when the whipped dalgona coffee blew up on Tiktok! I couldn’t stop making the whipped coffee when the recipe blew up because not only was it fun to make, but I never had such appetizing coffee before. Whipping it up was a lot of work, but I think it’s worth it for the flavor.
Overall, good work on this post! It was very informative and enjoyable to read!
I whipped by hand and it was so much work!! I had it a few times but I had wayyy to much energy with nowhere to go! I always find a way to justify “just one more video” then next thing you know it’s been an hour of me scrolling and I see that guy from the official Tiktok account saying I should take a break.
Hi Sunrise,
What a great post. You writing is so great to read. I wish I wish I could write with the same ease as you do.
Back to TikTok :-), we all more or less fid the same information. So now the big questions are, is TikTok going to keep its edge once the pandemic is over? will new entrant(s) in the market disturb its market share? How the legal battle with the US government is going to end? . It will be interesting to see.
I am looking forward to reading more of your post this semester.
Thank you Fabrice!!
I feel like as long as the legality of it in the US works out, Tiktok will have a lengthy run, and will be more sustainable that Vine. It will take an absolute powerhouse to take over the market as they have 800 million global users.
wow i never realized that the original name for tiktok was douyin, I kind of thought the same people who created vine and musically just kept trying to change their name and tweaking the app so it can be perfected for their target audience.
also you did mention that “for you” page that has really separated them from the other social media platforms
The creator of Vine actually made a new app last year name Byte (ironic as Tiktok was created by a company named ByteDance). I absolutely loved Vine so I immediately downloaded it to secure a good username but with Tiktok already dominating the year, Byte didn’t really take off.