Looks like TikTok is slowly imploding.
I know there's plenty of political implications and a lot of discussion here is on that (which is interesting in its own right), but I wonder if there's opportunity here for a potential competitor.
I know there's plenty of political implications and a lot of discussion here is on that (which is interesting in its own right), but I wonder if there's opportunity here for a potential competitor.
But if the Chinese government wants to prop up TikTok and pick them as the winner, they can.
Although it seems the online records are disappearing fast. I could not find a good source of the TikTok history and key figures any more...
The best thing those old men could do is legislate system level privacy protections onto IOS and Android so an app can never get the level of info they're worried about.
I'm not going to get into whether or not this actually makes sense, but he is a massive celebrity among young millennials/gen-z.
He definitely made a ton of money, probably most of the money Mixer was investing in their entire launch, and now he's completely free to triumphantly return to Twitch (or take another deal).
I'm not sure how going to Mixer is a knock on him.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/tiktok-stats/#:~:text=TikTok%20ha....
It looks like the median user is 18-24... but that's still quite young compared to "tv news" watcher where the median age is around 60.
https://capitolcommunicator.com/nielsen-provides-data-on-med...
If your entire worldview is ageist, works strictly on stereotypes, and encompasses only the United States, that might be true. But there are companies, organizations, and governments around the world locking out TikTok.
Tiktok is not some extra special danger, except to those who have extra fear of a Chinese owned company. India has banned Tiktok, around the same time they've had border skirmishes with China and are running a big nationalist government.
In my opinion, are still "evil" in terms of hijacking our brain, but I am a bit fed up with those prevailing political prejudice nowadays for anything related to China.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...
TikTok is really exceptionally bad in this regard.
Are you referencing something specific?
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Vine was 6 second long video clips. Comparing Vine to TikTok is somewhat like comparing TikTok to YouTube videos. They are different.
Lot of TikTok popularity has come from offering songs/lip syncing functionality (done better by their acquisition of musica.ly). That wouldn't have worked on 6 second Vines.
TikTok allows 15 second videos (only 2.5x the length of Vine videos) but also has a way to string multiple videos together for 60 seconds of play time (10x longer than Vine had).
So this is actually a pretty fair comparison (old Twitter @ 140 vs new Twitter @ 280) if you ignore stringing them together.
As an aside, it's insane to me that the differentiating feature of an entirely new video hosting platform can simply be the length of the content it supports.
The world of tech companies is truly bizarre. Why doesn't Google launch dozens of Youtube variants under their own branding with their own slightly different length restrictions to just dominate the market?
The music integration was the biggest example of this, and probably why the lip-syncing/dancing videos became so popular on the platform.
Which is different from ByteDance, which is the company that owns TikTok, for those confused like me.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/lasso-facebook-tiktok-shut...
It appears to me that TikTok is just a perpetuation of exclusivity in Social Networks (the same way kids exited FB when their parents signed up) ...
Sure its just another algorithmic-based feed. But in my experience (and from talking to a few ppl who enjoy TikTok), the For You page is a differentiator. It's like a combination of what's trending, what's recent (time wise), and what you've spent time interacting (watching, liking, commenting) with previously.
Again all platforms do some form of this, but just saying TikTok does it in a pretty addicting way.
Also combine that with the fact that TikTok videos are so incredibly short that by the time they're over, you haven't even decided whether or not you liked it (no doubt by design), which means you can endlessly consume content.
Also, I've heard that TikTok has better (read: better for comedy-style content) tools to edit videos in the app
surprised there hasn't been any controversy about that - tiktok is a predator's paradise.
The way the discovery tab works also created a meta game: Alt TikTok, Deep TikTok, Elite TikTok, ...
The exclusivity aspect is there too, very few users are over 30, but it's not the driver.
deep tiktok is weird video effect stuff, deep fried meme kinda stuff... I dont want it.
Practically I think it's more diverse content and easier access to other people/fame/glamour for kids than Instagram, Snapchat, or even YouTube/Twitch/etc, since those platforms have been cornered by an existing group of "influencers."
It's probably just a different kind of dopamine hit that kids can't get elsewhere.
While they are still in the App Store
I'm not at all in favor of the US government banning apps unless the US government publicly and transparently shows the proof of security risk first. Anything short of that just appears to be politics and is likely to just be a negotiation tactic.
I prefer more privacy controls and transparency (which gives consumers / Attorneys General the ability to sue the app company), but I don't want my government to see the Chinese government's policies as the thing we need to compete with.
I think the US needs to look outward to functional democracies before we try to "inspire" other countries with our broken corruption. What the USA calls lobbying other OECD countries is criminal bribery and all other political dysfunction in the US rolls downhill from there.
I'm not blinded to think "China is doing good stuff", but I'm highly suspicious that we should see ourselves as any better than them right now. We are completely unable to address lots of our own {civil, legal, justice, health, economics, ethics, etc} issues.
Edit: Oh, I forgot the one staring me in the face—Youtube! It's no less of a social network than TikTok.
Google is completely incapable of coming up with their own successful social network.
Orkut: stagnated and killed
G+: design by committee as you said
YT: acquired but the social aspects are down the drain
We can complain about FB and Zuckerberg as much as we want but they knew how to evolve the network and keep the users
It's like Google forgot that a social network needs to be social. Limiting how many people could get on G+ created hype for sure, but whenever someone got a invite, they realized none (or very few) of their friends were on it, and quickly forgot about it.
The slow rollout approach worked for GMail because your friends didn't need GMail for it to work for you.
They have tried to launch at least 2 of their own, and both flopped hard.
Youtube is successful coz of google infrastructure not google decisions/methodology.
Now Google is trying to move Youtube into becoming a hollywood-lite experience and providing major support to entrenched hollywood celebs like will smith/brie larson(they even bypassed monetization policies for larson - her first video launched with full monetisation in play)
I'm tired of "national security" being thrown around willy nilly. If the US government has proof that this is a security risk, they need to be public and transparent with their proof. Anything short of that and I'm not on board with "a ban".
That said, I agree that young kids and those who compulsively use social networks are fickle and are likely to move onto another network when the current one ceases to keep their attention.
You don't need proof when the CCP is itself giving you so much evidence. Infact I should be asking Americans as to what is wrong with you guys that you are supporting a totalitarian government? The CCP passed a new cyber security law in January of this year (called the MLPS 2.0) where it has given itself full power to have unrestricted access to any data transmitted or stored within CCP.
“There will be no secrets,” writes Steve Dickinson on the China Law Blog. “No VPNs. No private or encrypted messages. No anonymous online accounts. No confidential data. Any and all data will be available and open to the Chinese government….there will be no place for foreign-owned companies to hide.” [1]
What about foreign investors? It gets even worse!
"It’s exactly as bad as it sounds, and it gets worse. The MLPS 2.0 is supported by two additional pieces of legislation, both of which strip away any protections, safeguards, and loopholes that might once have been used to maintain the sanctity of corporate data. Both went into effect at the beginning of this month.
The first is a new Foreign Investment Law which, as Dickinson notes, treats foreign investors exactly the same as Chinese investors. Although this has been billed as a means of simplifying the investment process, in practice it strips foreign investors of many of the rights they previously enjoyed. Areas of the market previously closed to foreign companies will remain closed.
The second, as reported by Engadget, establishes a new set of guidelines surrounding encryption. Again, on the surface, these seem like they were proposed with the common good in mind. It’s only on closer examination that cracks start to appear." [1]
And you are telling me here that this isn't a threat to the National Security? TikTok is obligated to share your data without even being asked for because of this Chinese law. And before you say that TikTok operates in US and not in China, its parent company ByteDance is a Chinese company. You cannot form a Chinese company without adhering to these laws! Do you really want the US Government to come out and confirm this when China has itself passed such a law?
[1]: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/chinas-new-cy...
The US government should not ban me from choosing to use a crappy entertainment app. Yes, I realize that an app which is owned by a Chinese company who stores its servers and data in China is governed by Chinese laws.
> what is wrong with you guys that you are supporting a totalitarian government?
I'm not. I'm just saying that anything short of a blanket ban on an entertainment product is not tantamount to "supporting a totalitarian government". You are missing all of the shades of gray. You can't post to HackerNews without using {a phone, a computer, and internet connection, etc} which provided revenue to a company in China, which according to your logic "supports the totalitarian government".
Also there is a philosophy called accelerationism[1] which is the inverse of what you propose, but which may get to the end point (freedom from the CCP) faster than your proposed solution.