Has Tik Tok Caught Your Attention Yet?
From what I have noticed around, there is a new bug in town called Tik Tok and it has nothing to do with the movements of the hands of a clock. However, it is gradually becoming one of the major social interaction of these times.
The platform which specializes in sharing short-form lip syncing videos has inspired several IRL challenges where people yell the phrases. Have you seen any of your friends do this yet?
I would love to count how many of you are on this boat with me too.
Interestingly, according to a recent report from Sensor Tower. the short-form video app just had its biggest month ever in December 2018 with the addition of 75 million new users—a 275 percent increase from the 20 million it added in December 2017. Since its launch in 2017, It is already a leading short video platform in Asia, the United States and other parts of the world (Available in 150 markets and in 75 languages.
But you would agree that despite its rapid rise, there are still plenty of people, often older people who do not have good information of what TikTok is.
Often referred to as a “Lip-syncing” app with a subtle feel of some sort of an online Karaoke experience, it is actually better known for its act-out memes backed by sound clips (usually music). This gets reproduced and reproduced among majority of the young users.
I enjoy the fact that it allows me to do whatever I want and feel cute and all.It also has a lot of funny audios I can lipsync to -Shawbee (Nigerian Rapper)
After acquiring US-based rival, Musical.ly in November 2017 and merging user bases in August last year, Tik Tok has grown steadily. One of the biggest fun on the application is that unlike vine, Youtube or Instagram, it is not dominated by micro-celebs but with the main feed of everyday users doing something cute, funny or clever.
However, the growth has not come without some concerns as it has also been the subject of troubling reports around bully, harassment and other internet issues associated with other large, social and public-by-default app. But unlike a good number of apps, concerned parents or the users themselves can set a Tik Tok account to private, turn off commenting, hide the account from search, disable downloads, disallow reactions and duets and restrict account from receiving messages.
With a template that makes video editing very simple—you don’t need to be a video expert to put together clips with a range of effects—Tik Tok has ranked No. 4 worldwide across iOs and Android on the most-downloaded apps of 2018 according to App Annie’s data. Both App Annie and Sensor Tower agree that TikTok scored the No. 3 position for most installs among all apps worldwide in 2018.
As the revenue is starting to arrive with Sensei Tower estimating that Tik Tok has grown to nearly 800 million lifetime installs not counting Android in China; if you haven’t been paying attention, you may want to get started. It looks like this is the announcement of the new internet—big, dominated by emerging markets, mobile, video, meme-ified, off and online virality etc.
Have you caught the bug too?
