“Stories”, “poems” and “lyrics” of songs: this is a sample of what can soon be found on TikTok, according to a press release from the social network. It launched this Monday, July 24, a new tool allowing users to post messages containing only text. And this feature is reminiscent of Twitter, recently renamed “X”.
The TikTok application, owned by Chinese ByteDance, has so far been dedicated to images and especially to video. But its new feature gives users “another way to express themselves,” she said in a statement. A “Text” tab is now available when designing content. The creator can type his message, add music, location, background, and post it directly on the platform.
Unlike Twitter, TikTok messages are not intended to facilitate discussion. They will be able to circulate quickly and be commented on by other users, like Instagram posts or short videos already present on the application.
TikTok, “successor” of Twitter?
Having become popular thanks to its short formats, TikTok is now looking to expand its offer. The social network has notably gradually increased the maximum length of its videos from 15 seconds at its launch in 2017 to 10 minutes, to compete with its rival YouTube. He himself created the YouTube Shorts short formats, inspired by TikTok.
Text-only launched on July 24 is an alternative to Twitter, the king of text-based social networks. Its hegemony has been increasingly challenged since its takeover last October by billionaire Elon Musk. Moreover, the launch of text messages on TikTok comes as Elon Musk announced to rename Twitter and change its logo, immediately creating controversy.
Several other networks have tried to pose as successors to Twitter: Mastodon, Bluesky, T2, Substack Notes or Threads. But none managed to win. If the latter, created by the Meta group (Facebook, Instagram) in July, had 100 million accounts just five days after it went online, user activity halved in one week, according to the marketing company Similarweb.
Like Meta, TikTok benefits from its size, with around 1.4 billion monthly active users, according to the specialized site Business of Apps. But unlike Facebook’s parent company, it chose to integrate a new text-only feature into its app rather than launch a separate product, as Meta did with Threads.