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TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets
- EGreg 6y agoPaywall. Impossible to read it
- digheal 6y agohttp://archive.is/0eXcB http://archive.is/0eXcB
- mangix 6y agoMakes sense. The fed's inflated the money supply quite a lot.
- mcfly1985 6y agoFor reference: 15 years ago, M1 was less than 1 trillion dollars. Today it’s over 5.
- xoxoy 6y agoTwitter and Snapchat are both “only” worth around $25B each This isn’t just about a money printer.
- typon 6y agoTiktok: 800 million monthly active users worldwide. Twitter: 330 million monthly active users worldwide. Snapchat: 360 million monthly active users worldwide. Maybe TikTok should "only" be worth $50B?
- qppo 6y agoAre Twitter and Snapchat allowed behind the Great Firewall? Honest question, I don't know
- snazz 6y agoAccording to http://www.chinafirewalltest.com/ http://www.chinafirewalltest.com/ (not sure how legit it is), twitter.com is blocked and snapchat.com is allowed.
- chosenbreed37 6y agoSo far in this discussion I've figures of 500 million, 800 million and 1.5 billion users for Tiktok. All staggering but rather large degree of variance
- Apocryphon 6y agoI wonder how many of these traders are Chinese nationals- makes me wonder if we're towards a future where it's not just American dollars, but also RMB, Gulf Arab petrodollars (as we're seeing from the Saudi investment in the Softbank Vision Fund), and just dumb cash coming in from every part of the world economy. Or maybe we're already there.
- qeternity 6y agohttps://outline.com/YZZ9rB https://outline.com/YZZ9rB
- sjroot 6y agoI really can't fathom how this is possible. The largely young demographic (which I'm guessing warrants this valuation) has a track record of jumping from platform to platform, whichever is trendy for a given year. With that in mind, how are investors seriously willing to get behind this company in such a big way?
- goodside 6y agoThe tendency of young people to jump from platform to platform is partially an illusion caused by the fact they don’t remain young. You see this especially in dating sites — people used to think OkCupid could never make money because it was dominated by 18-to-25-year-olds. Now it’s mostly people in their 30’s, and the prior king of 30-somethings, Match.com, is for people over 40. The same thing happened with Tinder, PlentyOfFish, etc. TikTok isn’t a dating site, but it’s certainly “flirty”. It has specific appeal to socially active teenagers and nearly all of the content shows off suitability for dating: looks, dancing, fashion, wit, etc. I could imagine adding paywalls to men contacting desirable women, or of course just padding the feeds of less valuable users with ads.
- echelon 6y ago> padding the feeds of less valuable users with ads This is horrifying when you consider this happens in every avenue of life and will only become better targeted as technology progresses.
- goodside 6y agoIt’s less horrifying if you think of it as a treadmill — MySpace is sort of the logical extreme, where the owners realized its days were numbered and made the experience so ad-heavy that everyone left for other platforms. You sow growth for some number of years, then you reap. Sometimes it’s subscriptions, sometimes it’s sponsored full-page branding.
- echelon 6y agoSorry, I wasn't making the claim about a product. People that are more socially valuable are given a better experience and are treated better; kind of the social media "red carpet" treatment. Those that are less valuable are mined and exploited. I can imagine an insidious future where social networks assign an "intelligence score" to users and advertise snake oil to those with less capacity to evaluate risks. There might even be a market for those users. A number of companies in the mobile gaming space profit from exploiting "whales". Imagine buying and selling them as targets. Similarly, networks might evolve to give positive experiences to users that create content. We already have that in the form of monetization and karma. The economy rewards value creators. But imagine being algorithmically put in place. That gives me the creeps.
- ManoSinkosika 6y agoafter rating drop on google still expensive
- blackearl 6y agoDo any of these kind of apps ever make money? Or do they just get pumped and dumped?
- msrmthehomeless 6y agoThrough video ads. They have a structured that's hard to differentiate with user content unless you watch till the end.
- skinnymuch 6y agoYes. Billions in profit
- tantalor 6y agoFirst glance: seems about right; pretty popular/trendy site Second glance: oh that's in Bs, not Ms; nevermind!
- proverbialbunny 6y agoIn comparison Disney is valuated at $128B.
- mikeg8 6y agothat is a mind blowing comparison. Thanks for highlighting
- FriendlyNormie 6y agoIt’s worse than that considering TikTok can easily vanish from the face of the earth if just two app reviewers working for Apple and Google say No.
- justicezyx 6y agoThis is the parent ByteDance, not TikTok...
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago>The trading of ByteDance is reflective of the global wave of consumers who agree that ByteDance can displace Facebook as the leading social network If this came true, what would be the ramifications for US national security?
- DevKoala 6y agoFacebook security issues were an influencing factor in the past elections. How much worse can it get? I don’t think that rooting for Facebook against a Chinese built competitor is rooting for national security.
- SonOfKyuss 6y agoNeither are ideal, but at least we can compel the CEO of Facebook to testify before Congress. Good luck trying that with a Chinese national.
- bko 6y ago> It’s the first salvo of ByteDance’s goal to reach 100,000 staff globally by the end of the year, outlined by Chief Executive Officer Zhang Yiming in an internal memo last month. Can someone explain to me the rationale behind such an aggressive employee headcount? Do they have larger ambitions or are they trying to justify the valuation? It just strikes me at an incredibly large number of employees for the service.
- novok 6y agoIt's not their only product.
- samename 6y agoIf they employed the moderators instead of contracting them out, I think that number would make more sense. I'm not sure if they do or not.
- gibolt 6y agoByteDance has a huge suite of apps already (in China). Several of them could independently be unicorns without international expansion. I don't see why they wouldn't want to both grow that number and expand what they already have to other markets
- enitihas 6y agoWhat happens if Chinese big tech starts dominating the world? Since the US no longer dominates manufacturing, if the US starts losing in services too, what advantage will the US ever have on China?
- Avicebron 6y agoThat's where we are at. Thankfully modern economic theory has the best interest of the US at heart. I'm sure the more we offshore the better it will get for all of us here, I mean it just makes sense.
- jariel 6y agoThis is an excellent question, but more pertinent is the fact that these companies are state-sponsored, state-backed. The CCP/China views these apps as a serious tool of foreign policy and economic expansion, influence and control. Imagine if Trump had meetings with Apple CEO and was subsidizing their product, creating worker legislation for them, directing/requiring banks to fund them, using the foreign service to help cut deals and suppress competitors etc., controlling/censoring everything in the AppStore. This happens everywhere to some extent but it's very real for China. It would be fine if some 'large, great Chinese companies' started doing some great things but that isn't really the case, this will be a form of economic dumping, state collusion and strategy. It's a serious issue that 'old economy' Trump is nowhere close to understanding. We don't want to get hyper-nationalist on the other hand, we can't afford to ignore the real systematic issues either, and only a very firm hand will be able to make a difference. This is in a way the paradox of Trump - he's the only US leader, arguably through bluster and arrogance - to be able to actually stand up to some systematic Chinese intransigence.
- throwaway122378 6y ago> It's a serious issue that 'old economy' Trump is nowhere close to understanding. Politics aside Trump is the first US President to stand up to China. The question is will US corporations do the same?
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- jariel 6y agoAnyone care to comment on the sustainability of these platforms? Facebook has a strong network grounding effect (a few of them) and it may be around for a while. But these 'hyper short form' things like Snapchat and TikTok I feel to be faddish. The 'form' is here to stay, but unless the platforms have lock-in they are fickle. I think Apple, FB, MS, Google have strong incumbency, even though Snapchat is growing ... I'm not so sure. That said - the world is still coming online in droves, and Snapchat only has 200M users meaning a lot of upside, and possibly an opportunity to entrench themselves.
- snazz 6y agoI'm not sure that I would put Snapchat and TikTok in the same bucket. Snapchat has very strong network effects among a certain significant demographic. It has a feature that suggests people you may know and a variety of techniques (Streaks, BFFs, Snap Score) intended to keep people using it daily. Think of Snapchat more like a messaging app than like a social network.
- alasano 6y agoSame reason honey was sold for 4 billion, they have an absolute ton of data on their users.
- kgin 6y agoTikTok proved to be a perfect secret clubhouse for Gen Z sensibilities of humor, nihilism, and celebration of differences. But as older generations pile on that do not pass the "vibe check", it is already slowly starting to ruin the party. It's still the best party in town, but hopefully ByteDance is humble enough to realize TikTok's success is about a lucky coupling of a format and cultural moment.
- runawaybottle 6y agoIf what you’re saying is true, then in a sense a lot of these apps are like the Seinfeld of the time. Eventually the season finale happens, and very few end up being a Simpsons (Facebook). Profit while you can I guess.
- skinnymuch 6y agoSeinfeld still makes good money though.
- Invictus0 6y agoI don't necessarily agree with this. I know several people that get their daily news through Snapchat. Tiktok rewards viral content, unlike Facebook which just blasts everything your friends do on the platform into your timeline. I think the signal is much higher on tiktok.
- DevKoala 6y agoI am happy for these news. Facebook has a monopoly on social media, and it’s good for competitors to grow strong enough to challenge it.
- nck4222 6y agoIn theory that sounds nice but as far as trusting a company with my privacy/data, a Chinese backed social network is probably one of the only entities I would trust less than Facebook.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago“Investors” in situations where it makes no sense are always guaranteed to be scheming central bankster Jews who just print money from thin air and use it to steal shit. You should bootstrap anything you create, never accept investors or buyers. God is watching and judging you retards. Go ahead and keep “crushing it” though, what could possibly go wrong.
- mftest 6y agoAre these guys also funded by Mayoshi Son and Softbank.
- lessname 6y agoMaybe something worth mentioning: The ratings on google play [1] dropped from 4.5/5 to 1.2/5 because they deleted a video criticizing a TikTok user and did not delete a video endorsing acid attacks, but it seems like it's mainly ongoing in India. [2] [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zhiliaoapp.musically https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zhiliaoapp... [2] https://www.indiatvnews.com/technology/news-tiktok-gets-1-star-rating-on-google-play-store-here-s-why-618838 https://www.indiatvnews.com/technology/news-tiktok-gets-1-st...
- kayhi 6y agoFeels like Twitter buying Vine and not executing made this possible?
- cwkoss 6y agoYeah, killing vine was such a huge mistake.
- throwaway391003 6y agothey really should just start it up again. i'm sure there's many who would love to get off the chinese service
- skookum-skuad 6y agoZoom, TikTok, .. smh. Viral apps, made who-knows-where, who-knows-how, and with unproven security. Dotcom tulip mania all over again. No. Thanks.
- chrischen 6y agoSocial media in the US was always something I thought that Chinese companies couldn't penetrate due to cultural differences. The fact that they have means so many more US tech businesses are potentially at risk, because China's tech sector is extremely strong on the software side, even on the open source side (Ant design for react, Vue js). This is despite relatively high anti-China sentiments: see Koa-router being transferred to a Chinese maintainer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19158218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19158218, granted there are concerns with transferring a popular package to an unknown person for money, or Huawei's problems penetrating US market. Companies often have to hide their Chinese origins, such as OnePlus (a subsidiary of Oppo).
- ngokevin 6y agoMaybe this isn't a substantive comment, but I think China understands America more than the other way around.
- sabujp 6y agomandarin should become mandatory in US schools
- magicsmoke 6y agoCompare the number of Chinese students in the US and the number of US students in China.
- Jagat 6y agoThanks to Hollywood, American TV shows, and the Internet being predominantly US/English dominated, every country understands America more than the other way round.
- chrischen 6y agoThere's also the massive Chinese diaspora.
- chrischen 6y ago
- TechBro8615 6y agoPretty insane. It will be replaced by another app-du-juor in 4 years. Social apps follow a pretty predictable schedule where cohorts are strongly associated with high school and college demographics moving through phases of their lives.
- softbankhater 6y agoGood news. Finally some social network without FB and Google!
- softbankhater 6y agoOK, it is not really a social network right now, but I suggest they will move in that direction.
- objektif 6y agoThere is an insane amount of push to make TikTok happen. I am relatively certain that it will go nowhere.
- chickenpotpie 6y agoBeing successful in the TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram market segment seems completely random. These apps have so many features in common with each other and none of them really do anything innovative. TikTok is definitely not the only vine clone in the world, but for some reason this is the one that is worth $110b
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nly 6y agoTwo words: market depth. It's just like bitcoin. In an illiquid market you can easily trade small volumes at ridiculous valuations.
- mrdrozdov 6y agoAs others have mentioned, this hacker news headline is deceptive. The valuation is with respect to ByteDance, which has a business suite beyond TikTok. Even the article headline mentions this: "TikTok Owner’s Value Exceeds $100 Billion in Private Markets" There are other facts about ByteDance such as having nearly 100k employees and a moderately size AI research lab that makes this news less surprising.
- toohotatopic 6y ago>moderately size AI research lab Isn't their AI lab actually quite good? If I remember correctly, they create personalized news stories that are actually read and consumed.
- mrdrozdov 6y agoIt isn't an ultimate metric, but they have 150+ papers listed on google scholar, which is not a small amount. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=bytedance.com&btnG= https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=byt...
- ummonk 6y agoWhy the clickbait title instead of the original ("TikTok Owner’s Value Exceeds $100 Billion in Private Markets")?
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.md/0eXcB https://archive.md/0eXcB
- intopieces 6y agoIf you believe in the power of targeted marketing, believe in TikTok. I didn't log in, I gave this app no information about me at all and it managed to turn 1 or 2 likes into a stream of endless content that hit a certain spot for me. I had to delete it.
- lsllc 6y agoHere today, gone tomorrow. Like AOL, Myspace and Compuserve before them. TikTok doesn't have anything other than a fleeting fascination with today's youth. As they age, the next generation will find something else. Does TikTok even have assets? real estate, manufacturing capabilities, intellectual property ... oh and paying customers?