If you’re old enough to keep in mind Kesha’s “Tik Tok,” you may not really “old” by the standard definition-the song only came out during 2009-but you’re probably still too old to know regarding the other TikTok, the app of the identical name. Teenagers and younger people are the primary users of the app, which can loosely be referred to as a social networking for amateur music videos (users can make their own as well as just watch everyone else’s). If you know about this whatsoever, it might be by its former name, Musical.ly. Why is it called something else now? What distinguishes it from the other applications that teens are enthusiastic about? Is it really worth a billion dollars? And are amateur music videos any good? The solutions to those and more questions can be found below within this self-help guide to TikTok.
What was Musical.ly, and why made it happen change its name to TikTok?
Musical.ly launched in 2014 (it absolutely was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang) and gained a dedicated userbase within the next few years; in November 2017 it had been acquired by ByteDance, a Beijing-based media and tech company, to get a reported $1 billion. During the time, ByteDance already owned a comparable app, TikTok, that had launched in China in 2016. Musical.ly and TikTok were both popular, but each reigned around the planet, based on Reuters-the former inside the Americas and Europe with 100 million monthly active users (who called themselves “Musers”-it’s unclear if this name will survive), and the latter in Asia with 500 million of the same. Actually, Tik Tok Video Download was the most downloaded iOS app inside the first quarter of this year, per consumer research. ByteDance’s decision to bring both apps together as you product was a move toward efficiency, as well as the company told Reuters it decided that TikTok “better reflects the breadth of content created on our platform that extends beyond music to comedy, performance art and much more.” So, in early August, TikTok absorbed Musical.ly-all user accounts and videos were relocated to TikTok, as well as the app formerly known as Musical.ly ceased to exist. (As a result of China’s restrictive internet rules, TikTok remains a standalone app there, where it is by the name Douyin and it has over 300 million monthly active users.)
What else changed once the app became TikTok?
Its not all that much! The update notes promised “new creator tools and interactive filters” as well as “bug fixes and gratification improvements.” Such as the cabability to post “reactions,” new filters, and background effects. Users were additionally promised access to content from more countries and personalized recommendations. And also since digital mindfulness is all the rage right now, the newest app is able to warn users when they’ve been utilizing it for longer than a couple of hours.
In a video reviewing the newest app, YouTuber LifeWithErick noted that the old Musical.ly app indicated in profiles how many videos users had on the site and exactly how many videos they had liked, features that disappeared using the update. The digital camera, the font, and how drafts appear can also be different.
How long are TikTok videos?
Like the dearly departed app Vine, Musical.ly encouraged creativity within very specific limits. Instead of the 6 seconds that defined Vine, on Musical.ly, and now TikTok, just a few seconds will be the magic number. That’s top of the limit for recording in the app, but users can string those clips together to create stories of up to one minute long. Users also have the choice of uploading longer videos that were not recorded inside the app.
Exactly what do people do on TikTok? Could it be all lip-synching?
Lip syncs were the original raison d’être of Musical.ly, but the app came into existence known for longer than just music. (“2017 is going to be remembered since the year Musical.ly transitioned from an app primarily for posting music videos to your kouuwb social-media and entertainment platform,” the Wall Street Journal wrote in November.) The choice to select the TikTok platform implies that will only be more true going forward.
Dancing is extremely big on the app, that makes sense given its musical roots, and are therefore other movement-based activities like gymnastics, cheerleading, and parkour. Comedy is big, though it’s often lip-sync-based comedy, which is something better experienced than explained: This is a video of any girl lip-synching towards the viral “catch me outside” clip through the episode from the Dr. Phil show that gave us rapper Bhad Bhabie. Also on the app, media companies like NBCUniversal and Seventeen host short “shows” which are aimed at its young users. Basically, you can locate a little bit of everything there.