5 ms·

Eventually something China made had to stick, surprising it took this long really.

djbusby 4y ago
A lot of the other Chinese apps were clones. TikTock was a novel improvement to the crap of Twitter and Facebook, etc. And it's algo is(was?) very "good"
- Ekaros 4y ago
  One has to wonder why none of the big USA based players don't have as good product? From what I have heard there isn't really anything special with the app itself. Ofc, it has reached the critical mass in creators, but it was there for taking...
  - est31 4y ago
    Youtube has built shorts (youtube tiktok competitor), and according to Google it has more users now than tiktok [0] even though it's been launched in September 2020. It contains tons of reposts of tiktok videos, sometimes legal ones by the original creators, sometimes uploads by third parties. That being said, I would take that claim with a big grain of salt, for multiple reasons. First you need to look at the relevant generation where tiktok is strong, whether youtube can break that monopoly. Also, it's fairly easy to make existing youtube users "try out" shorts via an in app pop up, and then mark that down as successful use of the feature. If your app has enough users, you can reach relevant usage counts easily, even though none of the users are there for the shorts feature only. Also, what matters with social apps like these is also not just the content consumption but whether friend groups etc. are communicating on that app or another one. This has extremely strong network effects that are hard to break. [0]: https://www.investors.com/news/technology/google-stock-rises-as-youtube-shorts-claims-1-5-billion-global-users-tik-tok/ https://www.investors.com/news/technology/google-stock-rises...
    - ok123456 4y ago
      Yeah they stuck "shorts" on the homepage so that anyone who visits "youtube.com" has to see them. That's not actual engagement.
      - HaZeust 4y ago
        Well the real slimy thing they did was make posts under a minute on YouTube default to a Short.
        Ekaros 4y ago
        And the browser UI is quite pointless for them... Why even have that? Is it only there to increase the metrics?
        est31 4y ago
        The shorts browser UI is a clone of the tiktok UI. I don't really like either, they could have innovated at least a little by introducing more powerful video controls like the seeking shortkeys that work on youtube for example. But it wasn't built to appeal me (or you), but other parts of the population, people who prefer tiktok like experiences. For me personally, the reason to use shorts every now and then is because tiktok is authwalled while shorts is not. But I don't know what other users of shorts would say why they prefer it.
        ok123456 4y ago
        They prefer tiktok's content and recommendation system. Just trying to recreate some of the UI aspects of it is just cargo culting.
        charcircuit 4y ago
        That's only if it's a vertical video. Most videos on YouTube are horizontal.
        4y ago
  - Avamander 4y ago
    Because TikTok has so far kept its strongly algorithmically tailored content to retain users, instead of optimising for more ad minutes like YouTube or Facebook. YouTube could be just as good, even without shorts, if it actually gave people what they want instead of what makes YT the absolute maximum amount of money over.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- meowtimemania 4y ago
  I would put TikTok in a different category than Twitter/Facebook. I see it as an improvement of Vine.
- ThisIsMyAltFace 4y ago
  TikTok filled the void left by Vine after it was stupidly allowed to die

A lot of the other Chinese apps were clones. TikTock was a novel improvement to the crap of Twitter and Facebook, etc. And it's algo is(was?) very "good"

Ekaros 4y ago
One has to wonder why none of the big USA based players don't have as good product? From what I have heard there isn't really anything special with the app itself. Ofc, it has reached the critical mass in creators, but it was there for taking...
- est31 4y ago
  Youtube has built shorts (youtube tiktok competitor), and according to Google it has more users now than tiktok [0] even though it's been launched in September 2020. It contains tons of reposts of tiktok videos, sometimes legal ones by the original creators, sometimes uploads by third parties. That being said, I would take that claim with a big grain of salt, for multiple reasons. First you need to look at the relevant generation where tiktok is strong, whether youtube can break that monopoly. Also, it's fairly easy to make existing youtube users "try out" shorts via an in app pop up, and then mark that down as successful use of the feature. If your app has enough users, you can reach relevant usage counts easily, even though none of the users are there for the shorts feature only. Also, what matters with social apps like these is also not just the content consumption but whether friend groups etc. are communicating on that app or another one. This has extremely strong network effects that are hard to break. [0]: https://www.investors.com/news/technology/google-stock-rises-as-youtube-shorts-claims-1-5-billion-global-users-tik-tok/ https://www.investors.com/news/technology/google-stock-rises...
  - ok123456 4y ago
    Yeah they stuck "shorts" on the homepage so that anyone who visits "youtube.com" has to see them. That's not actual engagement.
    - HaZeust 4y ago
      Well the real slimy thing they did was make posts under a minute on YouTube default to a Short.
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        And the browser UI is quite pointless for them... Why even have that? Is it only there to increase the metrics?
        est31 4y ago
        The shorts browser UI is a clone of the tiktok UI. I don't really like either, they could have innovated at least a little by introducing more powerful video controls like the seeking shortkeys that work on youtube for example. But it wasn't built to appeal me (or you), but other parts of the population, people who prefer tiktok like experiences. For me personally, the reason to use shorts every now and then is because tiktok is authwalled while shorts is not. But I don't know what other users of shorts would say why they prefer it.
        ok123456 4y ago
        They prefer tiktok's content and recommendation system. Just trying to recreate some of the UI aspects of it is just cargo culting.
      - charcircuit 4y ago
        That's only if it's a vertical video. Most videos on YouTube are horizontal.
        4y ago
- Avamander 4y ago
  Because TikTok has so far kept its strongly algorithmically tailored content to retain users, instead of optimising for more ad minutes like YouTube or Facebook. YouTube could be just as good, even without shorts, if it actually gave people what they want instead of what makes YT the absolute maximum amount of money over.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
meowtimemania 4y ago
I would put TikTok in a different category than Twitter/Facebook. I see it as an improvement of Vine.
ThisIsMyAltFace 4y ago
TikTok filled the void left by Vine after it was stupidly allowed to die