TECH CRUNCH - Aug 13 - That's according to the earnings report of Chinese Internet company Joyy, the owner of Likee. For comparison, TikTok recorded ~200M daily active users in early 2020. Likee has something different to offer, as it allows influencers to easily make money from virtual gifts they receive from fans. From early July to early August, Likee accumulated 7.25M downloads, dwarfing Hollywood-backed Triller, TikTok's old rival Dubsmash and Vine's sequel Byte.
TikTok Rival Likee Reaches 150M Monthly Users Worldwide
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Former COO Sues Pinterest
TECH CRUNCH - Aug 11 - Pinterest's former COO Françoise Brougher, who was fired from the company in April, is suing the company to hold it "accountable for discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), and the Labor Code." Brougher alleges in her lawsuit that she was hired with a less favorable equity compensation package than her male peers. She claims that she was also left out of key decision-making by other executives; was subjected to a hostile work environment; and ultimately fired by CEO Ben Silbermann when she spoke up against her treatment.
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LinkedIn Sells Presentation-sharing Platform SlideShare to Scribd
NEOWIN - Aug 11 - Microsoft's LinkedIn has sold SlideShare, the presentation-sharing service it acquired in May 2012, to Scribd. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Scribd will take over the operations of Slideshare on September 24, including its 100M users, presentation upload and hosting tools, as well as its existing documents.
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Twitter Is Testing Automatic Tweet Translation
PCMAG - Aug 11 - Rather than having to tap a translation button, Twitter is experimenting with automatically translating tweets into users language of choice.
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TikTok's Separation From Parent ByteDance Could Take a Year
FORBES - Aug 11 - Separating the parts of TikTok Microsoft is aiming to buy from the social media platform and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance could take up to a year or more, well past a September 15 deadline set by Trump for ByteDance to sell TikTok's U.S. operations to an American company.
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Can Influencers Get People to Switch From TikTok?
USA TODAY - Aug 10 - Some of TikTok's most popular creators have already jumped ship. Some are encouraging their followers to shift to Triller. Meanwhile, other TikTok influencers were reportedly being financially wooed by Facebook to join Reels, which is embedded in Instagram. But will followers actually budge? Probably – but only so many, experts say. A glitzy new app isn't reason enough to tell followers to try something new. "If TikTok does get banned, we will probably take their place," said Mike Lu, CEO of Triller. "This weekend, we saw our servers literally blow up" as people flocked to the platform. Triller's sudden growth was "organic," Lu said, while Instagram is said to be paying influencers hundreds of thousands of dollars to use its Reels feature.
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Chingari, Indian "TikTok", Raises $1.3M
FORBES INDIA - Aug 11 - Indian TikTok rival Chingari has secured $1.3M in seed round funding. After the ban on Chinese apps including TIkTok on June 29, homegrown Indian apps such as Mitron and Chingari had seen a surge in demand. Chingari garnered ~2.5M downloads witnessing a 400% growth in the days after the ban. The app claims a 25M user base and ~3M active daily users.
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New Bidders Emerge for TikTok
TECH CRUNCH - Aug 11 - TikTok and Twitter have held talks about a potential merger, even as the video sharing company defends itself against Trump's pressure to force the sale of the business or potentially ban it. Microsoft remains the front-runner for TikTok's business in the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and that a potential tie-up with Twitter would just be for TikTok's North American business. TikTok is valued anywhere between $15 - $50B dollars - far too big a bite for Twitter, which has a market capitalization of $29B. Bytedance has to find a buyer before Sept. 15, or shut the business down in the US. But any sale could be scuttled by lawsuits challenging the President's executive order. On Saturday, National Public Radio reported that TikTok is planning to do just that. The company will reportedly argue that the executive order didn't follow due process, and that its underlying argument that TikTok poses a national security threat is baseless.
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Triller Explained: Can It Really Replace TikTok?
SCREEN RANT - Aug 10 - TikTok might have competition from another video-sharing app called Triller. The self-styled social video platform available to download from Google Play and the Apple App Store lists its features beginning with making and sharing videos with aid from an 'auto-editing algorithm.' Next, the app claims ~100 filters and the ability to personalize content with the standard emoji, text and drawing capabilities. As well as video sharing across multiple social media hubs, complete with allowing musical tracks in user creations to add a definite layer of personality. What brings Triller in focus, however, is the feature of collaborating with others, even across the globe in a group video.
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Indian Koo Wins Government's App Innovation Challenge in Social Category
FINANCIAL EXPRESS - Aug 7 - Koo, India's answer to Twitter for non-English users, was selected as one of the winners of the government's Digital India Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge. Koo, which was launched in March 2020, has won the challenge in the social networking category. Koo allows users to "speak their mind" through 400 characters of text or 1-minute short audio or video "Koos."
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YouTube Bans 2,600 Chinese Channels For Influence Operations
CNET - Aug 7 - Some of the channels posted content about racial justice protests in the US. YouTube also took down dozens of channels linked to Russia and Iran that had apparent ties to influence campaigns.
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Blackstone Reaches $4.7 Billion Deal to Buy Ancestry.com
BLOOMBERG - Aug 7 - Blackstone Group Inc. has acquired a majority stake in Ancestry.com, the business known for family history research and DNA testing. The deal is valued at $4.7B. Silver Lake and Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund GIC Pte have been the majority owners since 2016. After the deal, Blackstone will own 75% and GIC will hold 25% of Ancestry. Ancestry claims ~3M paying subscribers. The company first went public in 2009, raising $100M. It was taken private in 2012 in a $1.6B buyout led by private equity firm Permira. Silver Lake and GIC acquired their majority stake four years ago in a deal that valued the company at $2.6B.
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Sasai Launches New 'Moments' Video Sharing Product
CHRONICLE - Aug 7 - Sasai Moments will allow Sasai App users to experience, capture, post and share videos, audio notes, pictures and user location tags, among other features. This will be driven mostly by user-generated content along the same lines as TikTok. The Sasai App, which was first launched a year ago, is a unique African, all-in-one super App with chat, payments and digital marketplace features. Although developed primarily for Africa, the App has been embraced in over 180 countries around the world.
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TikTok's Top U.S. Competitor Is Also Chinese-Owned
FORBES - Aug 5 - President Trump wants to ban TikTok in the U.S., but he'll consider allowing a U.S. company to purchase it. As long as, in a novel twist, the U.S. government gets a cut. Meanwhile, U.S.-owned Triller is positioning itself as the biggest beneficiary to India's TikTok ban, with 40M new installs. "If TikTok gets banned in the US, Triller, Byte, or Dubsmash may take over as the preferred short-form video social networking app," says app analytics firm Apptopia's Adam Blacker. "Though neither of those is the current leader in the clubhouse as the top competitor to TikTok in the world. Instead, Tiktok's current top competitor is Likee." In the past six months, Likee has more than twice as many app installs in the U.S. as the next leading contender, Triller. And yes, Likee is owned by a China-based company.
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UT-Austin Students Create Social Network for Seniors and Younger Adults
REFORM AUSTIN - Aug 5 - Loneliness during the pandemic inspired UT-Austin students to create a new social network. Co-founders Allen Zhou, Aditi Merchant and Anthony Zhou founded Big & Mini, a nonprofit that connects youth and seniors through video calls to combat social isolation and bridge the generation gap. The Bigs are seniors who share their unique stories and experiences that youth can benefit from, and the Minis are on the verge of their adult lives and are curious.
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