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Vine founder launches TikTok competitor
- treebornfrog 7y agoAmazing branding. Edit: if this thing blows up, I predict Facebook will buy it.
- m-p-3 7y agoWhich would be a damn shame.
- supermatt 7y agoWhat do you find so amazing about the branding?
- treebornfrog 7y agoIt's very nostalgic, that's the only way I can put it. Something that just resonates with me. The UI is very nice too, big and bold.
- lvturner 7y agoOpens with an obituary and then only provides Google as a sign in option - not really sure how I feel about the on boarding so far
- jml7c5 7y agoObituary?
- theNJR 7y agoFirst time load has an ‘in memory of’ sort of like what you’d see at the end of a TV show. I don’t think Ive ever seen that in an app before.
- busymom0 7y agoAs someone else pointed out: > Unfun fact, Colin Kroll, one of the founders of Vine and HQ Trivia died of a heroin overdose a while ago.
- frosted-flakes 7y agoNo, it was Jacob Marttinen, one of Byte's engineers. He was killed last June (hit by a car).
- robbiet480 7y agoOn iOS it supports Sign in with Apple.
- albedoa 7y agoThat was not my experience on iOS. If it is actually an option, I wonder why it wasn't offered to me.
- stevewodil 7y agoApps offering third party sign in options on iOS must also include sign in with Apple https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/124006 https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/124006
- raydev 7y agoAre you using an iOS older than 12.0?
- dstaley 7y agoNot offering anything besides a Google sign-in option is a deal breaker for me. Kind of bummed, but I figure by the time it gets going they'll implement a more traditional sign-in.
- chvid 7y agoIt is terrible on boarding. Compare this with TikTok which first have sign up or in when you are posting something.
- Urgo 7y ago100% agree. Having a 3rd party sign in is as an option is fine, but when it's the only option it is not fine. Always offer your own account system too. Pros and Cons list for using 3rd party login ONLY Pro: user doesn't need to sign up, just logs in Con: If your account is terminated by the third party for any reason then it can't be used to log in anymore. YouTube recently terminated peoples google accounts for using emoji's over and over again in a live stream after the streamer told them to do so for example. Con: If the user closes their account on their own accord for that third party site they can't log into your site anymore either. Con: If the third party terminates the developers account for any reason then no users can log in at all! So yeah, if you're designing a website/app/anything with a login system, please please please always allow a user to create an account on your system too. It's fine if you want to give the user who don't care the option to log in via the third party, but I and many others will flat out not use your service.
- Latty 7y agoPro: You don't have to deal with the security hassle that is storing user secrets. While it is something where the best practices are very well described at this point, it's also something people consistently got wrong for a long time. Not saying it is enough to counterbalance or a good excuse for a company with resources, but I think it's a valid pro.
- Latty 7y agoI get I'm probably not representative, but the obit actually made it feel really human and endeared me somewhat. Realistically, I think it doesn't matter that much? (Not that you ever want to throw users away, but in terms of "sink or swim") Their initial user-base is all the people who have been watching vine collections for years, and that gives the platform a strong start.
- aty268 7y agoUnfun fact, Colin Kroll, one of the founders of Vine and HQ Trivia died of a heroin overdose a while ago. He was an interesting guy. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/nyregion/hq-trivia-overdose-colin-kroll.html?auth=login-google https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/16/nyregion/hq-trivia-overdo...
- travbrack 7y agoThat is not a fun fact :(
- aty268 7y agoYou are correct. I have changed fun to unfun.
- otachack 7y agoI get it. Don't feel guilty! Sucks that he died so young :(
- aty268 7y agoI agree, but he was kind of an asshole. Apparently he was pretty sexually abusive to the women who worked for him at Twitter and got fired for it.
- ta999999171 7y agoThis is a real rollercoaster you're taking us on, here.
- aty268 7y agoI'm making a tribute to the fact that he was an emotional rollercoaster of a human being.
- 7y ago
- mactyler 7y agoThis guy is the real deal. Wish him the best.
- Scoundreller 7y agoAs someone not very familiar with either: Why is TikTok succeeding while Vine failed? And why did Vine shutdown? How do you fail at user-generated content that you can sell ads and more on? I ask because I still run blogs that are < 5% of the size they used to be, but still make me $50/month with zero effort in static mode. So why would I stop?
- aty268 7y agoFrom what I understand, Snapchat killed it. They sold to Twitter pretty early for like $30M and Twitter just didn't move quick enough. Also, a lot of the popular viners wanted to be paid in some way, and they didn't really have a clear way for that to happen, so the creators pulled out and it died. TikTok just did it better. Creators can easily get paid, videos are not forced to be 6 second max, and they executed better.
- arzel 7y agoFun fact that I’ll shorten: (vine creators) all met at 1600 Vine in Los Angeles with Twitter execs. Creators asked Twitter for money because _we_ we’re getting offers by competitors to become exclusive to their platform, Twitter denied paying up, and all creators moved to other platforms. It only took a few months for the user base to die out.
- aty268 7y agoHuh that is a fun fact. Crazy how one bad decision can just destroy your company.
- paysonderulo 7y agoCrazy how refusing to compensate the people responsible for generating the value of your company can be considered to be just "one bad decision."
- Craighead 7y ago
- roflchoppa 7y agoFinally super short videos, without censorship.
- pentae 7y agoOh they'll be censored alright. Have you been on YouTube or Reddit lately?
- pjc50 7y agoNobody is going to let teens share uncensored videos; child porn is one of the few things against which the internet unites.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- whatshisface 7y ago>without censorship "Byte gives conspiracy theorists and rightwingers a platform. It's our moral duty to censor it." - WSJ, WaPo, NYT and friends in about five years.
- seibelj 7y agoChina clones America’s successful tech companies, and now America clones China’s.
- Gaelan 7y agoTo be fair, I think TikTok was to some extent a Vine clone.
- pound 7y agoIt was created literally couple of months before Vine's shutdown. Perfect timing for them.
- samstave 7y agoIn convinced tiktok is the chinese face recognition DB for the CCP
- jtms 7y agoif it’s a Chinese controlled company then company db == government db. They just passed legislation entitling the gov to access all encryption keys didn’t they?
- chrisco255 7y agoI don't think it's a good approach to pitch yourself as a "X" competitor. It immediately draws the comparison. Folks that are already happy with X will most likely stick with X and folks that haven't tried X yet are now drawn to split their attention between your app or service and X as they decide which to invest their time and energy into, assuming they get what X is all about in the first place.
- kryogen1c 7y agoN=1, but installed and liked tiktok until i learned that it is chinese owned and operated, then i deleted. I would jump on a competitor.
- thosakwe 7y agoHonestly, I don't know how much that matters. An interesting idea will always bring early adopters. The question is if they will stay and convert.
- earenndil 7y agoFor a fuller analysis of this, see 'Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, and the Quest to Kill eBay' - https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-to-kill-ebay-bb4992dc5020 https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-...
- chrisco255 7y agoGreat essay thank you for sharing!
- adzm 7y agoCan these videos be directly linked like via a byte.co url? Or is it all trapped in an app? I explored it a bit on Android but couldn't figure out how to just share a link, not download and encode the thing.
- ehsankia 7y agoThere's no link / web version. You can only export mp4.
- brenden2 7y agoWhat I really want to learn from these guys is how they go out and raise money so easily. I could do so much if it was that easy to get funding.
- echelon 7y agoThey've been successful before, and they're already well connected. It's who you know and your track record.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Reedx 7y agoPitch: "I founded and sold the original TikTok. Now I want to make another one." VCs: "Where do we wire the money?"
- jkaptur 7y agoLike what?
- toohotatopic 7y agohttps://brndn.io/blog/2019/12/02/startup-ideas/ https://brndn.io/blog/2019/12/02/startup-ideas/ Unfortunately, that's the anti-answer. He doesn't seem to have ideas. I think this was a perfect moment for him to pitch his idea.
- zupreme 7y agoSo cloning is cool when we Americans do it. Great... How many times will we reiterate the same core ideas? Is a new way to share videos, pictures, and text innovation? We can so so much more.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ponsin 7y agoIt's a shame that they don't offer a web version. I was interested enough in order to go to the webpage, but I don't want to download the app and make an account
- throw7 7y agoFun Fact: paywall.
- hastes 7y agoReally wish they went with 8 seconds instead of 6 for the videos. I mean 1 byte = 8 bits after all. Missed opportunity.
- elfexec 7y ago> Really wish they went with 8 seconds instead of 6 for the videos. I mean 1 byte = 8 bits after all. Actually, a byte could and did have a variety of bits as they were generally hardware dependent. Generally, a byte is the smallest number of bits that a hardware can process. The most popular bytes early on were 4 bits and especially 6-bit bytes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#6_bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#6_bit Octets ( 8 bit bytes ) became widely adopted after IBM went with octets in the 1960s and the industry basically followed and octets became so ubiquitous that byte and octet became synonyms. It's similar to how google became a synonym for internet search ( "you can just google it" ) or how coke became a synonym for soda in parts of the world. So while it is widely accepted that a byte is 8 bits, but technically, it isn't true. Octets are 8 bits and most/all bytes in the world are octets. But it doesn't necessarily have to be so. Octets always have to be 8-bits, but a byte doesn't.
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- loh 7y agoThis is exactly the type of response that keeps me reading HN daily. I love it. Apologies for the unsubstantive comment of my own here. I felt like an upvote wasn't enough to show my appreciation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pier25 7y agoTIL! French speakers do not use "byte" but "octet". If you look at French websites they use ko, mo, and go.
- balladeer 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ddmma 7y agoTikTok hit the global culture and became part of the youngsters minds. People evolved from text to video due to mobile and connectivity. When people identify product/ service name with action is already too late for any other competition. It’s the social media of 2020.. the new like or retweet
- meerita 7y agoTikTok has succeeded not because it has unique features. It simply started its strategy to take on the world with the freshest possible generation of users, children aged 11-14. Look at the beginnings, it was disgusting, but they were there patiently spending money to convince the generation that now with 18-21 already believes that Instagram is just a stronghold of retirees and no community. They now feel part of something unique because getting on Instagram meant competing against those who were already established. Every social network must be focused in this way. Today TikTok attracted all the big stars, and the Instagram generation is really asking themselves, what is going on? (same question snapchat users did back then), the truth is TikTok is eating Instagram at some big pace and it will take it over completely soon. Do you want to create a new social network? Aim for the 11-15 year old population and in 3-4 years you will have the strongest, most faithful and active community.
- treelovinhippie 7y agoPredatory capitalism, well just capitalism.
- meerita 7y agoIt's social engineering, not capitalism.
- jtms 7y agoYou misspelled “human nature”
- WilliamEdward 7y agoCapitalism is totally natural.
- jtms 7y agoThat is my point
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
- gzeus 7y agohttps://instagram.com/stories/bytesnews/2229048657293209599?igshid=dqfn3wx7brd3 https://instagram.com/stories/bytesnews/2229048657293209599?...
- NiceWayToDoIT 7y agoLiterally NOTVINE joke coming true :D))) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGDJkqESz0k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGDJkqESz0k
- hatsunearu 7y agoHope they overtake TikTok, we don't want a totalitarian government poisoning our children.
- vernie 7y agoThey fucked up by taking what felt like a decade to launch.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kwonkicker 7y agoToo little too late
- _bxg1 7y agoFrom what I can tell its only advantages over TikTok right now are "made by the person who had the idea first" and "isn't Chinese spyware". I doubt either of those really matter to TikTok's core audience. Byte will have to do better than that, I think.
- m3kw9 7y agoWhat would you do if founder of Friendster is now starting a Facebook competitor? It would not work.
- james_niro 7y agoThere are two things happening in social media world right now. First, when it comes to messaging friends and connecting with people most college kids uses Snapchat. I am in a big college and everyone at my university uses Snapchat for messaging. I believe that it is smart for Snapchat to default on camera when opening the app this way it keeps the distraction away and you can focus on whatever you were planning to do like reading a message plus it is a good privacy oriented platform. Second, when it comes to being silly and occupy boredom, kids are using tiktok. TilTok has a great recommendation algorithm. Sometime, if I don’t pay attention I can spends hours on the app. TikTok became a safe space for younger generation, where they don’t need filters and photoshop to be part of a community. Here is a great article in WSJ about TikTok https://www.wsj.com/articles/help-im-trapped-inside-tiktok-and-i-cant-get-out-11579801844?emailToken=8e85c02fb4d9dc4b0e375fa5db89ed4e3hd8TxvvM+aHAqbpVWR903IET2V1TwBFG0f3neQ3UVqAqo6tMVHeSETNnC4ZrlNA0nWu7FD/OB93I2AIJnbNxNMq5WbViEx4BZVo5UrwDpw%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/articles/help-im-trapped-inside-tiktok-a...
- ronyfadel 7y agoSnapchat = in the US Same as how so many young people in the US don’t have Whatsapp. AFAICT Instagram is king in Europe (for now).
- oliv__ 7y agoI love this website
- ryuukk_ 7y agoflop, mainly because of the name, and the intent
- voska 7y agoThey named the competitor to Bytedance's TikTok..... Byte?
- dingo_bat 7y agoTikTok has a very large proportion of users from India. Byte is not released in India. So I doubt it is a serious competitor.
- blackrock 7y agoDid I just miss something here? Out of all names, they chose Byte? And TikTok is made by ByteDance.