TikTok

TikTok From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For other uses, see Tick tock. "Tiktok" redirects here. For the film, see Tiktok (film). For the song, see Tik Tok (song). TikTok Douyin (抖音) TikTok logo.svg Douyin logo.png Screenshot of the TikTok app on iOS 13, as seen in Singapore. Screenshot of the TikTok app on iOS 13, as seen in Singapore. Developer(s) ByteDance Initial release September 2016; 4 years ago. Released worldwide after merging with Musical.ly on 2 August 2018. Stable release 15.5.0 / 31 March 2020 Operating system iOS, Android Size 308.3 MB (iOS)[1] 55.21 MB (Android)[2] Available in 40 languages[3] List of languages Type Video sharing License Proprietary software with Terms of Use Alexa rank Increase 174 (As of 16 September 2020)[4] Website tiktok.com douyin.com Douyin Chinese 抖音 Literal meaning "vibrating sound" Transcriptions TikTok, known in China as Douyin (Chinese: 抖音; pinyin: Dǒuyīn), is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance,[5] a Beijing-based Internet technology company founded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming. It is used to create short music, lip-sync, dance, comedy and talent videos of 3 to 15 seconds,[6][7] and short looping videos of 3 to 60 seconds.[8] ByteDance first launched Douyin for the Chinese market in September 2016. Later, TikTok was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of mainland China; however, it only became available worldwide, including the United States, after merging with another Chinese social media service Musical.ly on 2 August 2018. TikTok and Douyin have almost the same user interface but no access to each other's content. Their servers are each based in the market where the respective app is available.[9] In addition to the ByteDance headquarters in Beijing, TikTok also has global offices, including in Dublin, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.[10] Since its launch in 2016, TikTok/Douyin rapidly gained popularity in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the United States, Turkey, Russia, and other parts of the world.[11][12][13] As of July 2020, TikTok, excluding Douyin, reported close to 700 million users worldwide after less than four years of existence.[14] As of April 2020, Douyin reported around 500 million monthly active users.[15][16] In June 2020, Kevin Mayer became CEO of TikTok and COO of parent company ByteDance, but he resigned on 27 August, just four months into the job.[17][18] Previously, he was chairman of Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer & International.[19] On 3 August 2020, US President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok in the United States on 15 September if negotiations for the company to be bought by Microsoft or a different "very American" company fail.[20] On 6 August, Trump signed two executive orders banning US "transactions" with TikTok and WeChat to its parent company, ByteDance, set to take effect 45 days after the signing. A planned ban of the app on 20 September 2020[21][22] has been postponed by a week.[23][24][25] It has been banned by the government of India since June 2020 along with 223[26] other Chinese apps in response to a border clash with China.[27] Evolution ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese company owning and operating TikTok Douyin was launched by ByteDance in China in September 2016, originally under the name A.me, before rebranding to Douyin in December 2016.[28][29] ByteDance planned on Douyin expanding overseas. The founder of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, stated that "China is home to only one-fifth of Internet users globally. If we don’t expand on a global scale, we are bound to lose to peers eyeing the four-fifths. So, going global is a must."[30] Douyin was developed in 200 days and within a year had 100 million users, with more than one billion videos viewed every day.[31][32] TikTok was launched in the international market in September 2017.[33] On 23 January 2018, the TikTok app ranked No. 1 among free app downloads on app stores in Thailand and other countries.[34] TikTok has been downloaded more than 80 million times in the United States, and has reached 2 billion downloads worldwide,[35] according to data from mobile research firm Sensor Tower that excludes Android users in China.[36] Many celebrities including Jimmy Fallon and Tony Hawk began using the application in 2018.[37][38] Other celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Will Smith, and Justin Bieber joined TikTok as well and many other celebrities have followed.[39] On 3 September 2019, TikTok and the US National Football League (NFL) announced a multi-year partnership.[40] The agreement occurred just two days before the NFL's 100th season kick-off at the Soldier stadium, where TikTok hosted activities for fans in honor of the deal. The partnership entails the launch of an official NFL TikTok account which is to bring about new marketing opportunities such as sponsored videos and hashtag challenges.