TikTok's Secret To Explosive Growth? 'Billions And Billions Of Dollars' Says Snap CEO Evan Spiegel (forbes.com) 56
American social media companies are increasingly feeling the squeeze from TikTok, the fastest growing video platform on the planet, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. At this year's Code Conference, some of the world's top tech and media CEOs, and prominent political voices, raised concerns at the event about the power, rapid growth and surveillance capabilities of the Chinese-owned platform, in some cases calling for it to be banned altogether. From a report: "The reason why this has been so challenging for companies to respond to in the United States, but also around the world, is the scale of TikTok's investment," said Spiegel of Snap, which recently laid off some 20% of its own workforce.
"What nobody had anticipated in the United States was the level of investment that ByteDance made into the U.S. market, and of course in Europe, because it was just something that was unimaginable -- no startup could afford to invest billions and billions and billions of dollars in user acquisition like that around the world," Spiegel said Wednesday night. "It was a totally different strategy than any technology company had expected before because it wasn't an innovation-led strategy; it was really about subsidizing large-scale user acquisition."
"What nobody had anticipated in the United States was the level of investment that ByteDance made into the U.S. market, and of course in Europe, because it was just something that was unimaginable -- no startup could afford to invest billions and billions and billions of dollars in user acquisition like that around the world," Spiegel said Wednesday night. "It was a totally different strategy than any technology company had expected before because it wasn't an innovation-led strategy; it was really about subsidizing large-scale user acquisition."
They do it better than us (Score:2)
The bastards!
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Nobody expects the Spanish Century!
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"The USA are despotic warmongerers & are currently trying to provoke China into military conflict. "
Is that you Chen Li?
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"No. It's just everyone outside of the USA & UK can see it coming. But you're OK. "
I know, I'm in the EU.
"You can keep watching Fox vs. MSNBC vs. CNN vs. etc., & remain none the wiser."
Unfortunately I have no TV.
Re: They do it better than us (Score:1)
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As despotic warmongerers go, the US has been rather mild and ineffective. I'm not going to claim that there aren't very good reasons to be angry with us, but compared to every prior dominant power we've been practically benevolent. Of course, that's very faint praise indeed, but it's still true.
China will be interesting. Historically China has been extremely introverted, and hasn't considered anyone out side the country very important. But then the US had been isolationist for centuries, before WWI and
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Yup, what Uber was doing was exactly the same - or worse if we take into account money spent on lobbying around the world.
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sector. The Chinese government wants very very very badly for you to think that
TikTok is a private company; their state-run media say so frequently and adamantly
and will ridicule you very ineptly if you suggest otherwise; but there are some kinds
of evidence that they just can't hide, and this is one of them.
Billionaire tax problems. (Score:2)
"...it was really about subsidizing large-scale user acquisition."
Really? Billions poured into a literal unknown against the largest social media companies on the planet?
Sounds a hell of a lot more like a tax write-off to me. Oh the woes of the uber-rich.
Re: Billionaire tax problems. (Score:5, Insightful)
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And yet the most incredible claim to this story, is the fact that the massive dominating power and crushing control of the CCP, still felt intimidated. Intimidated enough to pour billions into this platform.
Because of the threat of....fucking influencers?
Unreal. Truly. Makes you wonder how China will react when an actual danger comes along that represents more than an army of teenage attention whores fighting each other with dance moves.
Amazing! (Score:3)
Billions of dollars wasted on social media.
Now imagine if all that money was used to make the world a better place instead.
Re:Amazing! (Score:5, Insightful)
If China really is holding ByteDance's reigns, then you could possibly conclude the billions came from China (it wasn't clear if the billions were available at start-up, or if that was reinvestment from revenue). You may then further conclude that money was spent to slowly change the way of thinking among the world's youth to be more in line with how China wants the world to be. In their mind, they did spend it to make the world a better place; playing the long game which is something China is very, very good at.
Then again, maybe that's all just conspiracy talk.
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(it wasn't clear if the billions were available at start-up, or if that was reinvestment from revenue)
Uhm, yeah, it actually is really clear that before you acquire users, you don't have the revenue to spend on the world's largest user acquisition program.
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You'll be more amazed yet! (Score:1)
The Party has been long known to play the long game.
Leveraging capitalism to buy communist influence and ultimately mindshare, whodathot?
According to them, that is exactly the essence of making the world a better place.
A better place (Score:1)
Socialists have been fighting against global warming, racism and wealth inequity for the last several decades, and it's only gotten worse. I'm sure the train will turn around eventually though. Just ignore history.
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Now imagine us in the pandemic if we did not have 25 years of innovation of home delivery. In 2000 it would have nearly unheard to have groceries routinely delivered.
Oh how times change. Or not. (Score:2, Interesting)
Over here, back in the fifties plenty was delivered, and affluent houses had just about everything delivered. Even in the eighties there were "mobile supermarkets" with a niche next to weekly supermarket runs, the weekly street market, and so on.
Now we have "on-line supermarkets" without stores but they drive funny little delivery vehicles and bring your groceries to your door. They apparently cost the same as supermarkets-with-premises, which sort-of makes sense since maintaining stores isn't cheap.
They
WTF is "user acquisition"? (Score:2)
invest billions and billions and billions of dollars in user acquisition
Paying hordes of people gobs of money to use their app?
Putting ridiculous amounts of ads on other platforms that somehow convince people to try TikTok?
I'm at a complete loss here.
Re:WTF is "user acquisition"? (Score:5, Informative)
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Try assuming that the ultimate source of the money was the Chinese government. One can imagine many reasons they would do this and also the influence and data that they would hope to extract from their investment.
Tik Tok user base built like all fake influencers (Score:3)
TikTok just did it at scale with fake bots, fake likes and fake comments as a bootstrap. As the developer, TikTok knows the real accounts that are real versus not. They train the algorithm with the real accounts. Wash, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat as users are led around an almost completely false reality of fun house hustler hucksterism.
Mark Zuckerberg is kicking himself for not thinking of it first.
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> Mark Zuckerberg is kicking himself for not thinking of it first.
Outsiders created fake bot-run accounts for Facebook; they didn't need to make their own.
Tik Tok, Smithfield, AMC... (Score:3)
It occurs to me occasionally to be curious how any of the valuations of these companies can work when the majority of their investors are from a place where every bit of their "capitalism" is manipulated by their government. Don't get me wrong - I know the Western nations have cheats here and there, too. But the Chinese take that to a whole different level.
What does it get them? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have neither a Facebook, nor a Twitter, nor a Tik-Tok account. Slashdot really is my only 'social media' website, so I'm not exactly savvy about these things. But, is Tik-Tok expecting to make a profit on all of this investment? Or is the mainland Chinese Government subsidizing it as a tool for propaganda and influence around the world? And, if it is the latter, how effective will it be?
The Russians have been influencing American opinion since the 1960s, when they actively tried to stir up unrest over the Civil Rights Movement, as documented in The Mitrokhin Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive#Disinformation_campaign_against_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]. The rise of social media must have been like a godsend to them, and no doubt the Chinese are employing the same methods.
Given the polarization and social unrest in the USA, I have to think their methods have been pretty effective. I would like to think that at some point you get diminishing returns though.
I've read that the mainland Chinese Economy is in trouble. I'd like to think that pouring all this money into Tik-Tok backfires on them somehow. Both because I don't like the idea of the Chinese influencing us, and because I don't like big name, advertising based, tracking people type social media in general.
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is Tik-Tok expecting to make a profit on all of this investment? Or is the mainland Chinese Government subsidizing it as a tool for propaganda and influence around the world? And, if it is the latter, how effective will it be?
The money has got to be coming through the government. How effective will it be? Well...
The Russians have been influencing American opinion since the 1960s, [...] and no doubt the Chinese are employing the same methods.
Yeah. No doubt. And it's worked out spectacularly well for the Russians, in terms of results per dollar spent. China is spending vastly more money, and I don't think they're going to get as much per currency unit... but they clearly get something.
I've read that the mainland Chinese Economy is in trouble. I'd like to think that pouring all this money into Tik-Tok backfires on them somehow.
It's huge money for a social media startup, but it's small peanuts compared to the rest of the money they're wasting on bullshit.
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| They clearly get something.
They get complete blackmail material for all of generation Z, for when they grow up to have positions of importance and authority.
They will be able to shape future elections, and force involuntary espionage, by releasing the embarassing likes, video views, and comments of everyone.
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That's very likely what the Chinese are hoping for. And it may play out that way. This is going to make me sound like quite the optimist, but I think by the time generation Z grows up, there will have been so many scandals and so much overwrought finger pointing, that they may be a bit jaded about it. Perhaps they'll even be realistic about youthful indiscretions.
We're already jaded about scandals in politics. The stuff going on now, and the revelations, would have been unthinkable a generation ago.
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The Russians have been influencing American opinion since the 1960s, when they actively tried to stir up unrest over the Civil Rights Movement
Now imagine how the free world might feel about being bombarded with US propaganda day after day...
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TikTok seems like most of the social media companies before they were forced to actually make money and make you watch ads.
Snap was a bit different because they were an IM system for sending sexts instead of a scrolling time waster.
Please help, we can't compete (Score:3)
What do you do when you can't compete? You cry foul. This is what US established social media companies are doing. There is barely any difference between TikTok and Youtube. Both are video platform and select "recommendations from strangers" using algorithms. TikTok created simpler interface and paid better returns to content creators and got user base faster (they are no more paying that much now). There are two major differences. One is that their videos are shorter making it ideal for people to view it even when you have a tiny break. Second is that they allow easy remixes. Neither of these by themselves are bad.
However, they do have sneaky tech that less tech savvy may not realize. They have a built in browser which should never be used as they do key logging on it. But there are no laws (at least in US) to prevent such apps.
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Tiktok is cancerous, but unlike real cancer, it's contagious and you just gave it to me with your nonsense rambling. "Sneaky tech" you realize this is a tech forum. Does your mom know you're using her phone?
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Lol sneaky tech
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Well, yes, but are they telling the truth for a change? It seems plausible to me, a totally ignorant bystander. (I've never watched TicTok and I try to avoid Facebook. Message boards like Slashdot are my social media.)
Dopamine Addiction (Score:2)
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That's good for retaining users but it doesn't do much for user acquisition.
Not just money (Score:5, Interesting)
TikTok is, in a horrendous way, simply a very good product, because it is extremely addictive to it's target group.
I did some 'opposition research' and installed the app, and forcedmyself to doomscroll for an hour or so, after seeng a friend's kid doing it for hours on a vacation.
The constant, no-lag, no-buffering mini endorphine kicks it gives the user the "just ooooonneeee more" addiction. It's really nasty.
They also bombard you with click-baity notifications. Even though I didnt like or follow anyone, they seem to know that I am a middle-aged man, and I got notifcations of pretty girls doing borderline sensual things with clickbaity titles all the time.
I imagine they have the targetting down to a 'T' once they know more about you.
Facebook seems to be following suit - I researched some pregnancy stuff a couple of weeks ago, and for a while, my "Facebook Reels" (which I don't use. It's like Facebooks TikTok clone) was full of twenty-ish years old pregnant girls in crop-tops in a ton of make-up dancing and moving suggestively. I really really didn't like that, and thankfully the algorithm seems to have given up on showing me that right now.
But I recommend that everyone do the experiment of purposefully using TikTok/Reels/Youtube shorts for an hour or so. It really does things to your brain.
I personally think that these things are neurologically damaging, especially for kids. It's on a whole other level of endorphine mini machine gun that causes brain-dead addiction than the previous techs.
It's addictive in a similar way that wave surfing is. It's not that every wave you see is a great. It's the constant sine wave of expectation and dissapointments, with some cool gems in between that really screw with the brain. This is also why casinos are so dangerous to many people. And companies have diales in how to exploit that better than before.
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Agreed.
So many people, just sitting and scrolling.
My kids handle it better than the other adults around me - who are happily scrolling, stationary, for hours and hours.
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I agree, make sure you install their app on your main mobile device, preferably an Android that you use for everyday commerce and communication.
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Unqualified statement (Score:2)
This must stop. (Score:2)
Everytime I see an article talking about Snap, I think "How can Canonical's containerized application packages be so important to the world?". Then I read the article, only realized I've been trolled into reading about a social media company. This must stop.
Evan not getting billions, Evan mad (Score:2)
Evan is just jealous that he didn't come up with a feature of 15 second videos thath you can publish and show to annyone.
Evan had billions but wasted them all on useless personel and free kombucha drinks all day (or was that Adam?)
"Billions and billions and billions of dollars" (Score:2)