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TikTok offers in-app purchasing of sponsored products
TikTok, the short-form video platform dominated by teens, is now moving steadily into sponsored content. TechCrunch reported today that the app will now let viewers buy products associated with sponsored hashtags without leaving the app. Called Hashtag Challenge Plus, the new feature allows companies who run influencer campaigns on TikTok to directly sell products to the app's users.
Giphy is bringing GIF stickers to TikTok
TikTok, the app of choice for teens today, is adding another tool to its arsenal: stickers. The short-form video app owned by Bytedance is joining forces with Giphy. Users can add GIF stickers to their videos by simply hitting a button. Many of the stickers are inspired by memes that started on the platform itself, such as the expression "Here's the Tea" or the Blanco Brown-coined #thegitup.
TikTok's parent company confirms plans for a smartphone
Yes, the company behind TikTok really is making a smartphone. ByteDance has confirmed that's producing a handset in a "continuation" of a project from Chinese phone maker Smartisan. Details of the phone itself are scarce, but ByteDance had obtained both patents and some staff from Smartisan before this. You'll see the outside influence in this design, then.
TikTok's creator is reportedly making a smartphone
TikTok's owner ByteDance may have grander ambitions than chat apps and streaming music -- Financial Times tipsters have claimed that the company is working on its own smartphone. The device would draw on acquired patents and talent from Chinese phone maker Smartisan, and would unsurprisingly come loaded with ByteDance apps. The rumor didn't include specs or a launch schedule, although founder Zhang Yiming had supposedly "long dreamt" of a phone, according to one source.
The company behind TikTok is reportedly launching a Spotify rival
ByteDance, the owner of the Vine-like social media app TikTok, might challenge Spotify with a paid streaming service in emerging markets, according to Bloomberg. It could introduce an app (not named after TikTok), in several non-first-world countries where Spotify, Apple Music and other music streaming services have yet to take hold. As for content, it has reportedly secured music rights from several of India's biggest labels, including Times Music and T-Series.
TikTok's owner launches chat app with a focus on communities
TikTok's owner, ByteDance, has jumped into the wide world of messaging apps. The company has released Flipchat (aka Feiliao), an "interest-based social app" for Android and iOS that combines the usual chats and video calls with a social network-style feed, chat groups and forums. While you can communicate like you would in other chat apps, the emphasis here is on participating in a community. If you're a fan of a movie, you can discuss it in a myriad of ways.
Vine successor Byte is now in closed beta
These days, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok dominate the short social video space, but that wasn't always the case. Vine, the popular six-second looping video app, helped give rise to many of today's YouTube stars over the course of three years, before Twitter unceremoniously shut it down at the start of 2017. Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann teased its return in the form of Byte, promising to bring back everything that made the app unique by spring of 2019. It appears he was true to his word, because TechCrunch reports that the service has sent out the first 100 invites to its closed beta.
Google blocks TikTok downloads in India over pornography concerns
Today, Google blocked TikTok downloads from its Google Play store in India, and Apple has been asked to do the same. The move comes after India's federal government sent a letter to the companies requesting that they abide by a state court's decision to ban the popular video app. India's concern is that TikTok encourages pornography and makes child users vulnerable to sexual predators, Reuters reports.
Snapchat can survive, but it can't do it alone
Snap Inc. co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel kicked off the first-ever Partner Summit last week in Los Angeles with a sort of syrupy soliloquy about how the Snapchat camera "lets natural light from our world penetrate the darkness of the internet." He went on to say the internet was "started as a military research project" and, therefore, "it's just not our natural habitat." The point Spiegel was trying to make (I think) is that building a platform like the internet is a collaborative process. And he sees Snapchat as a world where good things can happen, but he doesn't want to build it alone.
TikTok's next idea: To find new K-pop and J-pop stars
TikTok wants to find the next BTS. The video sharing app, owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, is launching a talent contest aimed at discovering K-pop and J-pop acts. The auditions will take place within TikTok Spotlight: a new channel where users from Japan and Korea can upload their music videos to be judged by an all-star panel comprised of record labels, local musicians and hit-makers.
TikTok's older users are being blocked after it introduced age checks
TikTok had to make sweeping changes after reaching a settlement with the FTC for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). One of those changes is directing users under 13 to a separate app experience that doesn't allow them to share videos. In order to determine which users can access the regular interface and which ones will have to make do with the age-appropriate version, TikTok has been prompting people to verify their birthdays. Unfortunately, the company's implementation seems to be far from perfect, because some users above 13 got their accounts deleted by mistake.
FTC fines TikTok $5.7 million over child privacy violations
The creators of TikTok are facing US penalties for allegedly doing too little to respect kids' privacy. The Federal Trade Commission has fined TikTok (aka Musical.ly) $5.7 million as part of a settlement over reported COPPA violations in its lip-syncing video app. Regulators said that TikTok not only collected personal information from under-13 users without their parents' consent, but made those profiles public and, until October 2016, let people share their location with nearby friends. The developers knew a "significant percentage" of users were under 13 but didn't change their ways even after "thousands of complaints," the FTC said.
Snapchat is in the middle of an identity crisis
There was a time a year or so ago when, if a friend wanted to send me a meme or a funny selfie, it would be on Snapchat. But I don't remember the last time that happened; at some point Instagram became our go-to messaging app. And apparently I'm not alone: Snapchat lost as many as 3 million daily users in 2018. Meanwhile, Instagram has grown so fast over the past two years that its Stories feature alone is much bigger than Snapchat, with more than 500 million daily users. This has arguably come at Snapchat's expense. But it's not as if Snap isn't looking to turn things around. The company wants to reinvent itself by trying a bunch of different things, like augmented reality shopping, being more open and teaming up with brands such as Nike on AR workshops.
China will make TikTok-like video apps responsible for what users upload
China's growing crackdown on internet media now includes some tight limits on short-form video apps like TikTok. Recently imposed guidelines make app creators responsible for the content their users post, and ask platforms to review every bit of content -- no mean feat when TikTok alone has roughly 150 million users in China.
Facebook debuts Lasso, a TikTok-style video app aimed at teens
In an attempt to court the youths who have been fleeing from its flagship platform, Facebook has once again dipped into its bag of tricks and pulled out a TikTok clone. Lasso, a music-filled video sharing app that Facebook has reportedly been working on since October, is available now for iOS and Android.
Facebook is reportedly working on a TikTok-like music video app
Facebook's music label partnerships opened up a lot of possibilities for the social network. According to TechCrunch, the company is currently working on a standalone app similar to TikTok/Musical.ly called "Lasso," which you can use to record and share videos of yourself singing and dancing to popular songs. It's obviously meant to cater to tweens, teens and young adults -- younger users who might prefer Snapchat and Instagram over Facebook's main app.
TikTok lets users add reaction videos to clips they watch
TikTok, which absorbed Musical.ly last month, is rolling out a new feature that will let users add their reactions to other videos. In the "Share" menu, there's now a "React" option, and when you select it, the app will record a video of you as you watch a clip. You'll then be able to move your reaction video around the screen to place it where you want. An app update with the new feature should be available in both the App Store and Google Play within the next couple of days, according to TechCrunch.
Musical.ly is officially dead
Musical.ly is shutting down for good. After amassing a sizeable user-base, the lip-sync app (the service had a few others as well) will scuttle users to TikTok, a Vine-like video app owned by Chinese internet firm Bytedance according to Variety. The publication says user accounts and videos will automatically move to the new app, so it should be a pretty seamless, if not abrupt, transition. And when you update Musical.ly for the last time, you'll automatically upgrade to TikTok.
Minimal Studios iPod nano watch kits raise a million dollars on Kickstarter, yes, a million dollars
Well that didn't take long. Less than a month after we reported on the TikTok and LunaTik concept iPod nano watches hitting Kickstarter the company behind them, Minimal Studios, has met its goal -- and then some. Way then some. The project has clocked in nearly $1,000,000 in funding, helped in large part by a $25 pledge getting you first in line for a $35 MSRP TikTok watch kit, while $50 scored you the metallic LunaTik, which will go for $70. If you missed your chance to pile on the money you can now pre-order officially, with an expected shipment date in January. Again we're not particularly keen on the whole nano as a watch thing, but obviously ya'll have your own ideas, and we say more power to you -- and to Minimal Studios founder Scott Wilson.
TikTok and LunaTik iPod nano watch kits look awesome, despite Ke$ha naming convention
We know it seems like everyone and their mom is turning Apple's latest iPod nano into a watch, but the TikTok and LunaTik concepts by Scott Wilson of Minimal Studios are definitely the best looking "iWatch" accessories we've seen to date. We say concept, because technically the products are still pipe dreams flowing through the funding platform Kickstarter.com -- but seeing as it has already doubled its requested funding goal, there's a very good chance these concepts will actually ship out. The TikTok features a simple snap-in design for quick wrist-mounting and is tentatively priced at $35. The LunaTik, on the other hand, is marketed as a "premium conversion kit" that secures the Nano in a two-piece CNC-machined aluminum case held together with stainless steel bolts, and should ship for $70. As with many Kickstarter projects, pledging some funding to the cause can score you either model at a cheaper pre-order price. Now if only the iPod nano was actually a good watch... Video after the break.%Gallery-107739%
