ByteDance is reportedly set to compete with Instagram through a new social network. Called TikTok Photos, it will allow you to publish photos in a feed. A battle that promises to be tense!
Faced with the insolent rise of TikTok, particularly among young people, Instagram has strived to adopt its competitor’s recipe for success, even if it means openly copying it. The social network began to give more and more importance to Reels, short videos similar to those of the Chinese platform, and to integrate similar functions – even if it meant moving away from its initial concept. But, this time, it seems that it is TikTok’s turn to take inspiration from Instagram, even if it means stepping directly on its toes: photography.
If TikTok is generally used for publishing short videos, the social network also allows its users to share photos, in the form of carousels accompanied by background music, which appear directly in the main feed. Afterwards, the photo publications on TikTok have a very different background from those on the Meta social network, often taking the form of “stories”. But the Chinese giant clearly intends to go even further. TheSpAndroid discovered several lines of code in version 33.8.4 of the TikTok application on Android mentioning a new application called TikTok Photos which would, as its name suggests, be dedicated to photography. We find in particular the terms “Open TikTok Photos”, “Share this message on TikTok Photos” And “Join other like-minded people who enjoy photo posts”.
TikTok Photos: a new social network for photography
According to the lines of code discovered, TikTok would suggest its users to also share their photos on TikTok Photos in order to “reach other like-minded people who like photo posts”. They would have the ability to sync photos they publicly upload to TikTok. The interface would look exactly like that of Instagram. TheSpAndroid managed to extract the logo of this new application. It’s a stylized “P”, with a font and colors similar to TikTok’s logo, on a black background. Since we can read in the lines of code “TikTok Photos will be launched soon, we hope to help you gain new audiences in the new app”we can expect an imminent launch.
This is not the first time that ByteDance has tried its hand at photography. Already in 2020, the company launched Lemon8, an application which aims to be a cross between Instagram – of which it uses the visual and codes – and Pinterest – for encouraging purchases –, while taking advantage of effective algorithms of his eldest (see our article). In short, a TikTok for photos! Initially reserved for Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, it reached 1.5 million downloads in July 2022, for a total of 10.6 million downloads nationwide. year. It was then deployed in the United Kingdom and the United States last year, where it did not experience the same growth as its sister, accounting for “only” 2.6 million downloads in Uncle Sam’s country. It remains to be seen whether we will be entitled to it in France!