TikTok: Key things to know as ownership shifts

Tik Tok

Video-sharing platform TikTok has over a billion users worldwide, including more than 170 million in the United States, it says — nearly half the country’s population.

Here is a closer look at the app, which on Thursday announced it had established a majority American-owned joint venture to operate its US business:

– Born in China –

TikTok’s transformation from niche video app to global digital entertainment powerhouse is one of the biggest shifts in the sector since the advent of social media.

From friends dancing together to home chefs demonstrating recipes or people sharing political views, TikTok can turn ordinary users into celebrities, revolutionising the traditional path to stardom.

The platform was launched in 2016 by Chinese tech company ByteDance for the local market, where it is called Douyin. The international version, TikTok, was released in 2017.

It gained massive momentum after merging with Musical.ly, a lip-synching app, a year later.

‘For You’ page –

The so-called secret sauce in TikTok’s rapid expansion has been its innovative recommendation algorithm.

Instead of showing content from accounts that users already follow, the endless scroll of TikTok’s “For You” page is based on viewing habits, engagement patterns and sophisticated content analysis.

A video from a complete unknown can reach millions of people if the algorithm determines it engaging enough — a model that the app’s rivals have been keen to follow.

TikTok’s focus on short clips also helps keep users hooked.

It was initially limited to uploads of 15 seconds, but this was later expanded to up to 10 minutes, and now some users can post videos as long as 60 minutes.