6 ms·

Not true. Why do IG reels and YouTube shorts suck, then? They clearly built something superior. And it can't seem to be matched by the biggest tech companies.

davidjfelix 2y ago
My take: it's a mix of brand bundling and lack of data. They're roughly equivalent but shorts is bundled with youtube which has its own brand perception and reels are bundled with IG/FB and have their own brand perception. Additionally fewer users means less algorithmic data to keep viewers. Tiktok was allowed to establish its own brand and develop a community while shorts and reels are intrinsically tied to their past. They may be able to escape that history but I don't think it's helping them be fast movers or win "cool" points.
- Majromax 2y ago
  > My take: it's a mix of brand bundling and lack of data. They're roughly equivalent but shorts is bundled with youtube which has its own brand perception and reels are bundled with IG/FB and have their own brand perception. Additionally fewer users means less algorithmic data to keep viewers. My intuition would work the other way around. I'd expect offerings from more established companies to have a big leg up in terms of usable data. Youtube should be able to use a viewer's entire watch/subscription history to inform itself about what shorts a user might like, even before they've interacted with their first short. Bytedance, on the other hand, has to start from scratch with each truly new user. The coolness or stodginess of the company would be secondary to its effects. If boring-old-Youtube could promise shorts creators great exposure to an enthusiastic audience, it would win the platform regardless of its brand.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    I'll argue that TikTok's structure which offers you one video at a time gives you much more useful information than YouTube's interface, which looks like https://www.threads.net/@mikeynerd/post/DB7DS7LzsVU https://www.threads.net/@mikeynerd/post/DB7DS7LzsVU TikTok gets a definite thumbs up or thumbs down for every video it shows you whereas if you click on one particular sidebar video YouTube can make no conclusion about how you felt about the other videos in the sidebar. The recommendation literature talks about "negative sampling" to overcome this, I never could really believe in it, I think now it doesn't really work. I built a system like that and found that, paradoxically, you have to make it blend in a good amount of content that it doesn't think you'd like for it to be able to calibrate itself.
  - trogdor 2y ago
    > If boring-old-Youtube could promise shorts creators great exposure to an enthusiastic audience, it would win the platform regardless of its brand. Just a guess, as someone who makes their living from YouTube: YouTube creators are driven to create content that earns them money. As compared to long-form content, YouTube shorts earn next-to-nothing, and it’s not clear that they drive significant new traffic to more-valuable content. Most large creators on YouTube are focused on the bottom line, not exposure.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      The reason shorts don't earn any money, as compared to Instagram and TikTok, is that they don't advertise crap for me to buy (I have YT premium), so I don't end up buying shit there like I do the other two.
xnx 2y ago
More data beats better algorithms. TikTok has vastly more interaction data by nature of its design. IG and YouTube shorts don't have nearly the volume of engaged users and are reluctant to disrupt the cash cow of their traditional interfaces.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  More data? Seriously? What has more data than YouTube?
  - xnx 2y ago
    A TikTok user may watch hundreds of videos and like dozens of them in a single viewing session. A YouTube user might watch ... 4? YouTube tried to force 10+ minute videos so they could insert television-style commercials.
- newsclues 2y ago
  I question the assertion that TikTok has more interaction data than Google.
  - xnx 2y ago
    Google has a ton of interaction data to be sure, but the app design decisions of TikTok (auto play, auto loop, easy swipe, easy like, etc.) extract so much more usable/actionable interaction data. The size of the like button on YouTube is a tiny percent of the screen. On TikTok the like button is the whole video.
    - leobg 2y ago
      Not just that. The whole UI is designed for behavioral data aggregation. It’s not just “did you click the like button”. It’s “did you swipe it away? How long did you watch until you swiped it away? Did you come back afterwards? Did you let it loop multiple times before moving on?”. They’ll capture likes and dislikes you yourself probably didn’t even knew you had, just from tens and hundreds of these micro actions. And they’ll do it in the very first hour of you using the app, whereas YouTube won’t know too much about you even after months of you using it.
ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago
Reels isnt getting the organic growth data, tiktok has a data moat.
4ad 2y ago
IG reels and YouTube shorts are crap because creators create good content only for the place where all the audience is, which is TikTok. When users open TikTok they expect TikTok-style content. When users open YouTube they don't expect TikTok-style content, in fact they hate it. Same with IG reels. It has nothing to do with the quality of the algorithm. In fact the YT algorithm has gotten worse since they introduced shorts because they shove shorts into people's faces. A better question would be why is the regular YouTube algorithm so bad. And the answer is because it doesn't optimize at all for the consumers, but for the producers (producers of ads, that is). TT has figured out it doesn't matter what people consume as long as they consume, whereas YT is bullish into controlling what people consume.
deeviant 2y ago
What part of right place at the right time did you miss?
spamizbad 2y ago
Having read the paper, what's unique about Bytedance's approach is how relatively simple it is at its core - obviously there's a lot of complexity around it to do it at scale, but I feel like it's simpler than the social-graph based approaches.
- mrfox321 2y ago
  It's simpler intuition but more complex from a data / ml perspective. Their algorithm is really built around their features. Specifically, temporal representations of user interest: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9458799/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9458799/ The features used by their algorithm tells you what a user is interested, historically. Contrast this to Meta, which uses the social graph as their features. Imagine features like the number of times a user likes another author's / cluster's content. Tiktok will serve you $TOPIC because you have $INTERACTED with $TOPIC historically. Meta will serve you $TOPIC because you have $INTERACTED with $PEOPLE who post $TOPIC, historically. Meta only coincidentally gives you what you like. Tiktok knows what you like. This is the difference. This is why IG is losing.
  - xnx 2y ago
    That's a crazy design choice by meta if true. The interests of those in my social graph have very little connection to my interests.
    - mrfox321 2y ago
      It's because they originally built their recommendation system to recommend friends and their content. Here, the social graph makes complete sense as the foundation for their simple search algorithm. But as they expanded their recommendation capabilities, the features stuck around. It's the same reason why tech debt accumulates. Data sticks around in the same way code does. But data is even higher friction, since it's a superset of the code.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
solarkraft 2y ago
I haven’t used TikTok, but I find both Reels and Shorts addictive enough.

davidjfelix 2y ago

My take: it's a mix of brand bundling and lack of data. They're roughly equivalent but shorts is bundled with youtube which has its own brand perception and reels are bundled with IG/FB and have their own brand perception. Additionally fewer users means less algorithmic data to keep viewers. Tiktok was allowed to establish its own brand and develop a community while shorts and reels are intrinsically tied to their past. They may be able to escape that history but I don't think it's helping them be fast movers or win "cool" points.

Majromax 2y ago
> My take: it's a mix of brand bundling and lack of data. They're roughly equivalent but shorts is bundled with youtube which has its own brand perception and reels are bundled with IG/FB and have their own brand perception. Additionally fewer users means less algorithmic data to keep viewers. My intuition would work the other way around. I'd expect offerings from more established companies to have a big leg up in terms of usable data. Youtube should be able to use a viewer's entire watch/subscription history to inform itself about what shorts a user might like, even before they've interacted with their first short. Bytedance, on the other hand, has to start from scratch with each truly new user. The coolness or stodginess of the company would be secondary to its effects. If boring-old-Youtube could promise shorts creators great exposure to an enthusiastic audience, it would win the platform regardless of its brand.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  I'll argue that TikTok's structure which offers you one video at a time gives you much more useful information than YouTube's interface, which looks like https://www.threads.net/@mikeynerd/post/DB7DS7LzsVU https://www.threads.net/@mikeynerd/post/DB7DS7LzsVU TikTok gets a definite thumbs up or thumbs down for every video it shows you whereas if you click on one particular sidebar video YouTube can make no conclusion about how you felt about the other videos in the sidebar. The recommendation literature talks about "negative sampling" to overcome this, I never could really believe in it, I think now it doesn't really work. I built a system like that and found that, paradoxically, you have to make it blend in a good amount of content that it doesn't think you'd like for it to be able to calibrate itself.
- trogdor 2y ago
  > If boring-old-Youtube could promise shorts creators great exposure to an enthusiastic audience, it would win the platform regardless of its brand. Just a guess, as someone who makes their living from YouTube: YouTube creators are driven to create content that earns them money. As compared to long-form content, YouTube shorts earn next-to-nothing, and it’s not clear that they drive significant new traffic to more-valuable content. Most large creators on YouTube are focused on the bottom line, not exposure.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    The reason shorts don't earn any money, as compared to Instagram and TikTok, is that they don't advertise crap for me to buy (I have YT premium), so I don't end up buying shit there like I do the other two.

xnx 2y ago

More data beats better algorithms. TikTok has vastly more interaction data by nature of its design. IG and YouTube shorts don't have nearly the volume of engaged users and are reluctant to disrupt the cash cow of their traditional interfaces.

wiseowise 2y ago
More data? Seriously? What has more data than YouTube?
- xnx 2y ago
  A TikTok user may watch hundreds of videos and like dozens of them in a single viewing session. A YouTube user might watch ... 4? YouTube tried to force 10+ minute videos so they could insert television-style commercials.
newsclues 2y ago
I question the assertion that TikTok has more interaction data than Google.
- xnx 2y ago
  Google has a ton of interaction data to be sure, but the app design decisions of TikTok (auto play, auto loop, easy swipe, easy like, etc.) extract so much more usable/actionable interaction data. The size of the like button on YouTube is a tiny percent of the screen. On TikTok the like button is the whole video.
  - leobg 2y ago
    Not just that. The whole UI is designed for behavioral data aggregation. It’s not just “did you click the like button”. It’s “did you swipe it away? How long did you watch until you swiped it away? Did you come back afterwards? Did you let it loop multiple times before moving on?”. They’ll capture likes and dislikes you yourself probably didn’t even knew you had, just from tens and hundreds of these micro actions. And they’ll do it in the very first hour of you using the app, whereas YouTube won’t know too much about you even after months of you using it.

ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago

Reels isnt getting the organic growth data, tiktok has a data moat.

4ad 2y ago

IG reels and YouTube shorts are crap because creators create good content only for the place where all the audience is, which is TikTok. When users open TikTok they expect TikTok-style content. When users open YouTube they don't expect TikTok-style content, in fact they hate it. Same with IG reels. It has nothing to do with the quality of the algorithm. In fact the YT algorithm has gotten worse since they introduced shorts because they shove shorts into people's faces. A better question would be why is the regular YouTube algorithm so bad. And the answer is because it doesn't optimize at all for the consumers, but for the producers (producers of ads, that is). TT has figured out it doesn't matter what people consume as long as they consume, whereas YT is bullish into controlling what people consume.

deeviant 2y ago

What part of right place at the right time did you miss?

spamizbad 2y ago

Having read the paper, what's unique about Bytedance's approach is how relatively simple it is at its core - obviously there's a lot of complexity around it to do it at scale, but I feel like it's simpler than the social-graph based approaches.

mrfox321 2y ago
It's simpler intuition but more complex from a data / ml perspective. Their algorithm is really built around their features. Specifically, temporal representations of user interest: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9458799/ https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9458799/ The features used by their algorithm tells you what a user is interested, historically. Contrast this to Meta, which uses the social graph as their features. Imagine features like the number of times a user likes another author's / cluster's content. Tiktok will serve you $TOPIC because you have $INTERACTED with $TOPIC historically. Meta will serve you $TOPIC because you have $INTERACTED with $PEOPLE who post $TOPIC, historically. Meta only coincidentally gives you what you like. Tiktok knows what you like. This is the difference. This is why IG is losing.
- xnx 2y ago
  That's a crazy design choice by meta if true. The interests of those in my social graph have very little connection to my interests.
  - mrfox321 2y ago
    It's because they originally built their recommendation system to recommend friends and their content. Here, the social graph makes complete sense as the foundation for their simple search algorithm. But as they expanded their recommendation capabilities, the features stuck around. It's the same reason why tech debt accumulates. Data sticks around in the same way code does. But data is even higher friction, since it's a superset of the code.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

solarkraft 2y ago

I haven’t used TikTok, but I find both Reels and Shorts addictive enough.