It seems to be like TikTok could also be near launching its new dedicated photo app, which has been within the works for some time, and should now have a brand new, official identify.
As you possibly can see on this instance, posted by @cmcalgary, some customers at the moment are being knowledgeable that their nonetheless picture uploads on TikTok will quickly be viewable on “TikTok Notes” as effectively.
As per the pop-up:
“TikTok Notes, a new app for photo posts, is coming soon. Your existing and future public TikTok photo posts will be shown on TikTok Notes.”
So primarily, TikTok’s seeking to launch a clone of what Instagram initially was, and populate it with all the nonetheless pictures which have already been shared to its predominant app.
So it’s pulling an Uno reverse card on Meta, and replicating its options for a change, although whether or not TikTok customers will truly be eager about a separate nonetheless picture app stays to be seen.
As famous, TikTok has truly been experimenting with a photograph app for a while, with references to “TikTok Photos” noticed within the back-end code of the app early last month. That’s now seemingly been up to date to “TikTok Notes” as an alternative, which is also one other potential dig at Instagram, which has its personal “Notes” function, which now contains the capability to share several types of updates with chosen buddies.
TikTok’s additionally been pushing customers to put up nonetheless pictures within the app. It added a “photo mode” in 2022, enabling customers to share nonetheless pictures in-stream, which it’s additionally been encouraging via pop-up alerts as effectively.
The addition of a nonetheless picture app additionally aligns with Chinese language market developments, the place the Tencent-backed Xiaohongshu, primarily an area model of Instagram, has seen large success, notably after incorporating eCommerce options.
As such, it is smart for TikTok to strive it out, by utilizing the content material that it already has. However I stay skeptical that customers are going to need one other nonetheless picture app, and that TikTok will have the ability to translate its short-form video success into one other platform.
However with a potential ban looming, perhaps TikTok’s pulling out all of the stops, and attempting out its varied experiments whereas it might.
TikTok proprietor ByteDance has already launched its separate eCommerce platform Lemon8 in Western areas, which noticed a heap of early consideration, then lost traction a few months in. It additionally has TikTok Music, which has seen some success.
A separate picture app is one other potential pathway, and it does appear to be TikTok is pushing forward with it, at the very least as an experiment.
We’ve requested TikTok for extra info, and we’ll replace this put up if/after we hear again.
