Short-form video app, TikTok, has continued to exert dominance in the web space. The social media app has recorded ground-breaking milestones since early 2021, accumulating more than a billion monthly users as people around the world flock in to either create contents or watch contents created by other on the app. Now it’s ending the year with another bang.

TikTok has dethroned Google as the world’s most popular domain, according to rankings from web security company Cloudflare. Cloudfare’s 2021 Year In Review Internet Rankings said TikTok got into the high traffic zone for the first time in February, but got to the top spot from August, keeping consistent high internet traffic.

“It was on February 17, 2021, that TikTok got the top spot for a day. Back in March, TikTok got a few more days and also in May, but it was after August 10, 2021, that TikTok took the lead on most days. There were some days when Google was #1, but October and November were mostly TikTok’s days, including on Thanksgiving (November 25) and Black Friday (November 26),” Cloudflare said.

Cloudfare’s 2021 ranking is a significant shift from the preceding year, when TIkTok ranked 7^th, behind Google, Facebook, Amazon and others. Google.com — which also includes Maps, Translate, and News among others — ended the previous year as the leader in Cloudflare’s 2020 rankings.

TikTok overcame the threat of being kicked out of the United States by the administration of former president, Donald Trump, to experience its best year since it was launched globally in 2018.

As of July this year, TikTok has recorded more than three billion downloads, equaling a record only held by Facebook before, according to data from Sensor Tower.

The pandemic appeared to have triggered massive use of TikTok as people of all ages flocked to the app. According to Statistica, TikTok saw growth in usage of 180% among 15-25 year olds. In the first quarter of 2020, when the effects of COVID-19 started to impact many around the world, TikTok saw 315 million downloads worldwide, Tug Agency reported.

TikTok.com has leaped seven places, ahead of Google, Facebook and Amazon, to claim the first spot at the end of 2021.

Here’s the full list of the top 10 most popular domains according to Cloudfare’s 2021 Year In Review Internet Rankings.

TikTok.com

Google.com

Facebook.com

Microsoft.com

Apple.com

Amazon.com

Netflix.com

YouTube.com

Twitter.com

WhatsApp.com

Besides paying creators for their contents, TikTok’s success has been attributed to its algorithm, which the company has been keeping a secret. Last year, the Chinese government viciously resisted Trump’s administration’s attempt to get TikTok to share its algorithm over concerns that the app is harvesting personal data of American users for the Chinese military.

According to a document which was leaked earlier this month, the app purposefully diversifies its homepage its famous For You Page so users don’t get bored.

However, being on top spot of domain traffic does not make TikTok the biggest social media platform, the app still has a catchup to do.

Cloudflare’s ranking includes lists of the most popular social media domains, most popular e-commerce platforms, and most popular video streaming sites.

In e-commerce, Amazon leads as the most popular domain, followed by Taobao, Ebay, and Walmart. While in Netflix, YouTube, and HBOMax reign as the most popular video streaming sites.

Combining this ranking with data from Insider Intelligence, Domain Journal noted that TikTok still has a long way to go before reaching the height of the biggest social media site.

According to Insider Intelligence (formerly eMarketer) report, TikTok surpassed Snapchat and Twitter in global user numbers, but is well behind Facebook and Instagram. This means TikTok is the third largest social media platform worldwide.

Cloudflare’s ranking does not mean TikTok now has more users than Facebook and Google, it only means that social media site, TikTok.com, received more traffic than any other domain.

However, TikTok is expected to see a 15.1% growth in global users next year, holding a according to Insider Intelligence. This means TikTok will hold a 20% share of overall social media users by the end of 2022.

The first and direct answer to this question is Yes! We can now spend the rest of the day defining what we mean by education.

The media is rife with stories of school dropouts or people who never went to higher institutions, but still founded and run successful multimillion-dollar businesses. Reading such stories over and over again, a lot of people begin to feel like they really do not need the education to know how to run a business.

But before going into the rest of the write-up, let me point that people and events make news when they are odd, unusual and when they are the exceptions to the rule. If you get my point, I mean that those multimillion-dollar entrepreneurs who make the news as being only half-educated are the exceptions to the rule. Generally, you will need a college education, maybe an MBA, plus years of corporate experience to start and run a successful business. Just because someone was successful in business without a college education does not mean that you will. In fact, more than 90 percent of the number failed in the business. The few you see on the news are the ones that broke the jinx.

Now let’s talk about education, and what this could mean in the business world. One reason why a lot of businesses fail is a lack of sufficient knowledge and effort. Does this necessarily mean education within the four walls of a school? Not necessarily. Being educated means that you have acquired sufficient knowledge on a topic, discipline, skills, etc. Being educated will stretch your ability to think critically and question things.

The young Igbo boy who spends five years working under an Electronics merchant in the Alaba market will barely need any MBA or corporate experience to start and run his own business afterward. He has spent five years acquiring the specific knowledge needed for that industry he is in. He will, most likely, do better than the business administration graduate who works two years in an office and then decides to start an Electronics business. However, if the same young Igbo boy chooses to go start a fintech instead, we may be looking at an entirely different kind of result. He is obviously lacking in the education needed for that sector.

I devoted time and resources to getting my MBA and attending other educational courses because I knew that in my line of business, this knowledge would become very relevant.

If you are in the corporate space and desire to start a business in tech, artificial intelligence, and the likes, you need formal education. You will be working with a lot of experts and you need to be able to understand how they think and how they work. You are going to handle your accounts before you get an accountant, for instance, how do you figure out that your books are in black or red? How do you understand your cash flow? What if your accountant is tampering with your reports, would you have an inkling?

Getting a college degree or an MBA does not mean that you are done learning. You will have to keep improving, adapting, and changing to suit the trends.

Education means being an expert in what you do, and in the startup world, you really need to be an expert in what you do in order to make a significant impact. The business space has no room for the half-baked entrepreneur who is merely hoping to get lucky. Without formal education, a hard worker with knowledge of the field he chose and some natural talent can put in the effort and succeed in his business.

You will notice, however, that most of them still go return for some formal education as they keep the business growing. Learning never ends, and if you are an entrepreneur, this should be your motto. Thanks to modern tech, you can take some courses online and get real value like you would in a classroom. Like a quote says “a hustler never stops learning”. Pushing more and more education into yourself is the same as investing in your business. Learn more about your business than anyone else, and you’ll become stronger as a business.

It is that season of business reviews. This one is one of the fastest growing startups in Nigeria today. Ugoji Harry and the whole team are doing an amazing job, for pioneering a new business model, and the customers have responded well. And in less than 6 months, it has grown from 4 staff to over 100. Egoras offers “Interest-Free Loans” backed by  physical or crypto assets within minutes; you only pay inventory fee.  Phones and accessories go for $0.37 per day; Refrigerators for $0.49 – $0.98, etc on fees.

To get the loans, it takes just 3 steps! Get the value of your collateral, fix an appointment with the Egoras team to inspect the asset (for physical assets), and receive your loan before the collateral leaves your hands.

Go and learn how Egoras has used a new business model to make it possible for people to participate in the financial system.

The Digital Bank for Immigrants and Global Citizens is coming in January. We have many designs for the debit cards and users have options to choose. These cards are both virtual and physical. I have blocked the name of our digital bank in the cards. And the most fascinating: if you pass our KYC/AML regime, we will make it possible that your bank account in a Lagos bank can be visualized with a real US bank account, if your bank is participating in our network.

Yes, you will have a US bank account. We’re launching with support for dozens of countries and we will make it possible for an eventual “global single bank account” through abstraction of many things at the technology layer.

People, we have an opportunity to solve this challenge I put many years ago – “The Digital Product No Fintech Or Bank Is Building in Africa‘ . Expect something amazing: it’s banking, invented anew.

Tekedia Capital continues to invest in the future of innovation.

We’re Tekedia Capital, we’re funding innovators of the future including a Texas-based Digital Bank