The competition between rival social media giants has been heating up in the past weeks and gets even more interesting with TikTok joining the race.
TikTok has recently added a text-only feature to its platform, giving users “another way to express themselves.”
TikTok users now have 3 options of expression.
- to post a photo
- to post a video , or
- to post text
Users will also be able to customise their posts by adding sound, location or duets, which are video reactions of other users to posts.
The platform also emphasized that the feature is to make the text-only posts as dynamic and interactive as the video and photo posts.
While Mr. Musk is rebranding Twitter to X, killing off the famous blue bird logo for a white X on a black background, and Zuckerberg is Thread-ing his new app through Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries, including the UK, TikTok is rolling out new features and testing some other new features like a new landscape mode with select users.
Last week, TikTok launched its own music streaming service, TikTok Music in Brazil and Indonesia, and also rolled out a beta version of the service in Mexico and Australia.
A TikTok spokesperson tells the BBC that TikTok Music would allow users to “listen, share and download the music they have discovered on TikTok, as well as share their favourite tracks and artists with their TikTok community”.
Owned by China’s ByteDance, TikTok was first launched in September 2017, as “Douyin.” 2 weeks later, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly another social media platform which was shortly closed down and its features incorporated into Douyin, creating the global version known as TikTok which was then launched in August 20ì8.
By 2022, TikTok became the world’s most popular online destination, having more hits than Google.
