The greatest companies of the 21st century will play at the perceptions of customers, not just their needs and expectations. I have made that point in the Harvard Business Review where I explained the reason why Apple continues to win any market it enters. That construct of perception is driven on the nexus that customers expect brands and companies to help them overcome frictions, even when they have no clue what that solution would be!
In video, YouTube is a static system where you can watch videos with marginal support from a static recommendation engine built on categories. But TikTok is a dynamic engine where AI systems parse millions of videos in minutes, and immediately build a watch-profile for you, giving you videos you would like to watch even before you ask for them. In our modern world, that business model will win markets.
So, it is not surprising that TikTok has eclipsed YouTube: “The short-video app, which gives users, especially youngsters, the opportunity to earn from their creative contents, recently became the most downloaded app in the world.” Simply, TikTok is now more downloaded than YouTube. Of course, by making creators small business owners in its ecosystems, TikTok is attracting the best in the industry to make it home.
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BBC reported that App users in the UK and US are spending more time on TikTok than on YouTube, citing data from app monitoring firm.
According to the report, the data from app monitoring firm App Annie, which specializes in analysis of the apps market, indicates that the average time per user spent on the apps is higher for TikTok, indicating high levels of engagement.
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Among social, communication, photo, video and entertainment apps, TikTok is ranked as the most-downloaded worldwide since 2020. It also competes with YouTube for the top spot in consumer spending since last year. TikTok was founded in 2016, and most recent public figures suggested it had about 700 million in mid-2020. It is a top speed growth compared to the slow pace experience of other video apps.
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The TikTok nation, it will soon become a universe. Its own level of addiction is unparalleled.
Some future ailments could be named TikTok syndrome, and some young people will require multidimensional deliverance, to be able to cure of that addiction.
We vilified and demonized tobacco, and now we are being invaded by apps stronger than tobacco…