How a corporation learned to copy

The social network TikTok has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Initially in our latitudes Musical.ly Be aware, the app has now come to the rest of the world as an offshoot of Chinese Douyin. While Baby Boomers are under-represented on stage, Generation Z fully represented.

Meanwhile the great popularity has propelled TikTok to the top spot in the social network’s rankings, but it’s still about to do even more for the company. to attract users, However, the TikTok concept is not appealing to everyone.

Short clips, often with music or dialogue, are mainly published. text entries or great debates Rather out of place. Apart from short videos, TikTok has relatively little to offer in terms of content. The app does not offer any additional features, other parts of the company play no part in public perception, at least in Europe. Finally, recently there is another app from Tiktok: Tiktok Now.

freedom march

Tiktok Now is Tiktok at first sight free additional app, which aims to break the already built-in feature in the TikTok app. The concept behind it is quite simple and extremely interesting for users who are tired of fakes on social networks. is at the same time But the concept is also not new, More on that later.

TikTok Now provides us an opportunity to bring back a touch of reality in our everyday social media life. While Instagram and company are now corrupted by staged photos, ads and a generally distorted reality, we should be able to see real life on TikTok Now.

To be able to use the app, you first need an account. A Tiktok account. For TikTok refusers like me, this is where the first hurdle starts. I haven’t been able to find my account since the early days of the network, so I need a new one. While TikTok Now functions as a free app, it is not.

If we try to register an account, the application asks us Reasons for security in Tiktok app There to switch to complete the registration. So the Tiktok app is also downloaded and the registration starts again. Once we complete the registration in the app, we can return to TikTok Now and log in with the account we just created.

introduce with dj-vu

To start, you have to issue some permissions for the app. it’s important issue notice, without which Now is hardly useful. We may also share our contact book, to enable not only more data collection, but also to be able to add friends directly through phone book entry. TikTok Now also requires a microphone and camera for the app to be able to capture content.

Once we’ve made our way through the authority slalom, the Now app explains its simple concept to us. For example, we are presented with a push notification, as we will see it every day from now on. “You have 3 minutes left! Publish your TODAY and see what your friends have published.” is written there. Now camera app will be launched after tapping on the notification.

Unlike classic social networks, however, here not only the camera is used, but at the same time front and rear camera Worked. Then we have three minutes to take a picture of ourselves in the here and now. The timer at the top of the screen is a reminder that we don’t have time for great posing and there’s no point in moving for a few fake photos anyway.

In theory, we can record during countdowns Repeat as many times as you want, but it’s not really possible to do more than touch up a blurry picture. Once we’ve recorded our Now, we can still choose whether we want to share our posts with friends only or with the whole world.

not much to do

When the introductory dance is over, we end up in the app’s dashboard. Here, divided into two tabs, all posts from our friends and users around the world, We always get to see two pictures that were taken. For example, the selfie portion of the recording can be moved independently of the recording behind in order to be able to view hidden content.

Each Now can be liked by heart, and it is also possible to comment and share. TikTok Now also records when individual users were recorded. Since all users of Now receive notification of creating a post at the same time, we can also see who did it too late. But the app isn’t particularly exciting. TikTok Now has almost nothing to offer beyond its core function.

except crawling through other posts There isn’t much to do here. The dashboard is focused on user content, there are at least two more tabs that we can browse through. On one hand, there is a separate tab with which we can search or add new friends. Contacts extracted from our phone book are also displayed here. In the third and last tab we see our own profiles and memories, in which past posts are recorded for recapitalization.

The settings of Tiktok Now have also been found here, which gives us some small adjustments enable. Among other things, we can determine whether our account should be private and who can comment on us. Nickname and profile picture can also be adjusted here. Apart from the option to clear the cache, there is nothing else to adjust.

Shamelessly copying is rare

It is nothing new that people copy in the app business and especially in social networks. especially the meta group likes to use them Success concepts of other appsTo take the water out of the competition. Instagram reels or YouTube shorts are considered to be a copy of Tiktok. It seems that people on TikTok are also enthusiastic about this approach but almost shameless about it.

For example, if you look at an app’s rating in Apple’s App Store, it might show just two stars and a bunch of angry comments. Namely, who is he now? Promoted App BeReal Have used before, not only on TikTok Now recognizes the concept of the app. Instead, the BeReal social network has been copied almost exactly.

TikTok Now is so similar to BeReal when it comes to operation and design that during testing I wasn’t sure I was in the wrong app. TikTok is clearly trying to take the wind out of a smaller competitor’s sails, without even indicating the added value.

While the copied story feature on YouTube on Meta or Shorts was at least meaningfully integrated into in-house apps, the BeReal concept doesn’t even fit into the TikTok universe. This is one of the reasons why the group is testing the feature apart from integration into the TikTok app under the name TikTok app now, possibly as an independent app. An approach that is also reflected in app reviews a lot of misunderstanding cares

conclusion

The concept of TikTok Now would be exciting and interesting if it didn’t already exist. The app sees itself as accurate copy of BeRealwithout providing much value. It is very difficult to predict whether TikTok user base will jump on the bandwagon. Using app ratings as an indicator, however, TikTok Now may find it difficult to gain a foothold with BeReal.

tiktok now is free for iOS And Android Available.