Timing of TikTok's New Feature Highly Suspicious 🤔🤔🤔

Okay, okay. It's not that suspicious.

It's obvious that China's TikTok really wants a piece of that sweet, sweet social media pie. Enough to add a new feature, to the wildly successful video sharing app (and the key to fame of countless creators), that already exists in other social media apps, specifically Meta's Instagram.

Texts. That's the feature. Texts.

Allow us to elaborate.

TikTok is primarily a video-sharing social media app, but with the introduction of text posts, users can now make/share.. Text-only posts (see below).

In effect, letting users publish text-only posts is no different than what users can already do on platforms like Instagram, but tech publications are reporting that the timing coincides with what is perhaps the downfall of Elon Musk's Twitter/X/__Everything__™ app. Major tech companies are trying to capitalize on the turmoil caused by Murk's purchase of the company last year and woo advertisers on to their platform by offering similar functionality to brands looking to shove their products down consumers' throats 😇.

TikTok is not an exception.

Given how poorly X, formerly known as Twitter, is doing in terms of revenue and profitability, it's no wonder that its competitors are circling around the app like sharks looking for blood. Mark Zukckerberg's Meta drew first blood with the launch of Threads (which was by no means the first microblogging app to challenge Twitter's dominance), but Zuck's platform has run into its own set of issues in terms of keeping users engaged (lol).

X's problems are by no means limited to its books. Musk's rebranding of Twitter is going as well as you'd expect it to: take, for example, the fact that Meta, Microsoft, and countless others already hold the intellectual property rights to the letter 'X', or the heat Musk is receiving for installing a giant 'X' logo at Twitter 'X' HQ, drawing flak from San Francisco residents and ultimately resulting in its removal.

That said, 'X's monthly users have reached a new high of over half a billion people, Musk recently tweeted (or X'd idk).

In contrast, users are already leaving Zuckerberg's Threads in droves, prompting the company to consider adding more "retention-driving hooks" to entice them to return to the app, including by using AI-powered chatbots, Reuters reported. But while Meta might be failing at Threads, it is certainly not failing at Reels, Meta's answer to TikTok.

According to figures released by the company this past week, Reels videos are growing rapidly among both users and advertisers and are quickly catching up to the ByteDance-owned TikTok app. Meta says the rags-to-riches growth of Reels, which are viewable on both Facebook and Instagram, speaks in part to the company's improving recommendation software, long the Chinese-owned rival's strong point, Reuters wrote.

Phew, what a week.

TikTok ranked #64 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings this week. Facebook was on the #4 spot, while Instagram was on #2.

In Other News.. 📰

• Sony PlayStation 5 console sales pass 40 million — via Reuters.
• LinkedIn seems to be working on an AI ‘coach’ for job applications — via The Verge.
• Zuck Says He's 'Not Sure' if the Elon Cage Match Will Happen — via Gizmodo.
• Twitter, now X, threatens suit against nonprofit studying hate speech and misinformation — via CNBC.
• OpenAI’s head of trust and safety is stepping down — via CNN.
• Scoop: Google Assistant to get an AI makeover — via Axios.

And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️

— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon