TikTok didn't fill a void, it's a fantastic video app that did a lot of things right. There was a lot of new video apps after Vine died, none of them were successful.
TikTok came in with short videos, collaboration tools, audio sharing, and has a realness that Instagram does not.
Also funny enough many Viners lived together in the same building so they could collaborate. We saw the same thing happen with TikTok.
The service failed because it was in high competition and they lost momentum. While Tiktok succeeded simply because it was fresh, appeared at a time when demand for personal and videos was growing, and offered the right combination of UX that satisfied its target audience.
Yep, 1600 Vine St. It’s a nice apartment building with lots of YouTube (and now TikTok) stars.
I don't really think that's the case. I'd still argue lack of investment from Twitter is what killed Vine.
>TikTok didn't fill a void, it's a fantastic video app that did a lot of things right.
Agree it's fair to say TikTok carved their own path to where they are today, but a lot of the same Vine-energy lives on in TikTok.
Conclude whatever you like, my understanding is that Instagram video directly killed Vine after the big creators had meetings with Vine executives about getting paid to stay on Vine. I guess that could be considered a lack of investment, but it can't be ignored that Instagram captured the creator base.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-t...
"Former executives say that a major competitive challenged emerged in the form of Instagram, which introduced 15-second video clips in June 2013. “Instagram video was the beginning of the end,” one former executive told me. “[Vine] didn’t move fast enough to differentiate.” Instagram courted celebrities with longer videos, eventually bumping the limit to a more flexible 60 seconds. (Vines didn’t break the 6-second barrier until earlier this year, and its extended videos never caught on.) Instagram also began promoting celebrity accounts in its popular “explore” tab, bringing them attention that Vine found difficult to match. Marketers began shifting their money away from Vine, and stars followed."
Instagram is much more for funny content that is longer form or static (this goes serious static content and memes), some short form content (since it has grown with reels), and for clout. The gram has always been for clout first and foremost. I’m not posting my pictures of my new whip on Snapchat or Facebook.
Vine was the platform for the great short form collaboration that is equally silly, informative and cool. TikTok is having the exact same effect, but has a feed, comment section, and related video functionality that makes it even better.
Anyway, just some ranting because I don't think I can understand why this is so popular, despite being so unusable. Granted, at best I would use it as an appetizer for proper content (like after listening to a good tune, looking for the full song or hearing/seeing some interesting tidbit and looking for more information). If people that talk aren't involved, it also rather reminds me of flash loops from days (more or less) gone by, just with terrible captions as an addition.
Instagram and YouTube etc. have all become incredibly corporate with professional production studios etc. dominating the platforms - I imagine the same might happen to TikTok eventually, but at the moment you can just see a funny video someone made of their cat, and the cat isn't sponsored by SquareSpace.
Also teens and young people in general say that their parents and grandparents moved to Facebook because of which they do not feel comfortable doing all the shenanigans on the Facebook anymore.
Zuckerberg was genius and cursed at the same time because he created social network for everything or in another words for general content(text, photos, videos etc.) but he didn't specialize in any until recently when he and his team started paying attention to each and every of this content category.
The reason they don't have all those filtering options is probably because most people don't want to use them and it's fun to see video content from all around the world and even in different languages. Serendipity on TikTok is part of the appeal.
Although it wasn't the case for you, I'd say TikTok probably has the best cold-start experience of any consumer content app. For comparison, try creating a new account on YouTube or IG.
Still get that TikTok may not be for everyone, but imo it feels like the end game design of short video content consumption. The content can be really fun, silly, pointless, mundane, or educational. You don't need to follow people. Celebs are not as relevant. Don't like something? Just swipe up. It's a pretty refreshing take.
Actually, it starts you off with your native language only at first IIRC. I increased it to seven different ones which didn't matter at all and then decreased it to three. And again, no difference.
I don't use any social media and all the "celebrity" stuff is generally not for me at all. So I can't really compare the experience to anything.
Though, I guess I can attribute the success to what the others said, despite its demerits:
- really low barrier of entry (mrkramer)
- organic feeling, as opposed to corporate-controlled/generated (alexgmcm)
The addictive nature of seeing what comes next likely also plays a role.