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Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

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Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#81

Post by bartozone »

cylinder wrote: post #70
bryananderson wrote: post #32

I used to work in the social influencer space, and often attended conventions in which top influencers were treated like A-list movie stars by legions of (mostly young) fans. The last few years, the Musical.ly kids were the ones causing all the crowd control nightmares. One kid’s performance on a stage in the convention hall was canceled by security because the crowd was dangerously large and packed-in (as they all f…

But kids this age have always been crazy fans of pop stars. Now they're choosing their content and engaging more directly rather than having (often skeezy) middlemen such as agents, producers, music labels, etc manufacture and force stars onto them (and then keep most of the money for themselves)

I'm 100% sure that any of these influencers making money most definitely have agents, producers and most likely deals with record labels (or similar). The entertainment machine is way too powerful. The large agencies have entire departments dedicated to finding these influencers and boosting their visibility through deals/partnerships/etc. While the path to fame may be changing, or has changed, the people controlling them are, and will, continue to be the same.

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#82

Post by rossboss »

For everyone talking about kids under 13 read this:

Eligibility . THE SERVICE IS NOT FOR PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 13 OR FOR ANY USERS PREVIOUSLY SUSPENDED OR REMOVED FROM THE SERVICE BY MUSICAL.LY. IF YOU ARE UNDER 13 YEARS OF AGE, YOU MUST NOT USE OR ACCESS THE SERVICE AT ANY TIME OR IN ANY MANNER. Furthermore, by using the Service, you affirm that either you are at least 18 years of age or have been authorized to use the Service by your parent or guardian who is at least 18 years of age. [1]

My question, can you use the app without an account?

[1] https://musical.ly/en-US/term

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#83

Post by bsder »

username223 wrote: post #69
kisstheblade wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok clicked this and a truly shocking amount of young girls in very little clothing. Don't know what this app does other than to get teens to pose sexy for youtube. Which is of course very nice, nothing wrong with that. "Women" need to "own" their sexuality as I learned on HN when the Maker-person was up for debate. Edit: check the talent on these videos, wow! Hopefully I can see these in adult videos when they come o…

$1B seems like a lot to pay for videos of half-naked teenage girls, but I haven't tried to launch a child porn start-up, so what do I know?

Successful technologies always get their start transmitting porn.

Until BitCoin manages this feat, it's doomed.

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#84

Post by robinduckett »

rossboss wrote: post #82

For everyone talking about kids under 13 read this: Eligibility . THE SERVICE IS NOT FOR PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 13 OR FOR ANY USERS PREVIOUSLY SUSPENDED OR REMOVED FROM THE SERVICE BY MUSICAL.LY. IF YOU ARE UNDER 13 YEARS OF AGE, YOU MUST NOT USE OR ACCESS THE SERVICE AT ANY TIME OR IN ANY MANNER. Furthermore, by using the Service, you affirm that either you are at least 18 years of age or have been authorized to u…

I tried to report someone who was clearly under 13 but the process involved giving musical.ly a huge amount of my personal information (above and beyond Name / email address) so I decided not to bother. They know their target audience is young children.

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#85

Post by RIMR »

hbosch wrote: post #77
RIMR wrote: post #68

I think it ought to be noted that Musical.ly videos are frequently passed around pedophile communities online. It worries me that an app designed for preteens to film themselves dancing can swell to such a size. Parents have completely stopped being accountable for what their children do online, and the consequences thereof...

First off, the criticism of this app being used for kids to sexualize themselves was what early doomsayers shouted down about both Vine and Snapchat, among almost all other video-social startups. I don't think it's a valid or reasonably realistic concern. Secondly, you definitely need to source some evidence for the claim about pedophile communities.

I am writing an article right now (to be published soon) about this, and I can tell you that there are lots of underground communities that just share YouTube, Musical.ly, Snapchat, etc. links for sexual reasons, with no attempt to hide the pedophilic nature of their viewing.

I am not about to post links to these places, for obvious reasons, but perhaps I'll post my article once it is finished. If HN had a PM system, I would bookmark your name and send you a link. Maybe just keep a look out in a month or so, or check back on my page for submissions. Lots of fact-checking and analysis to do before I publish this, not to mention protecting some of the children I am documenting.

There's also a large community of teens on these networks that consume pseudosexual content of kids their own age, and you obviously have to factor out of any statistics about pedophilia. I myself consumed a lot of preteen/teen model stuff when I was 13-15, but that content has only gotten more disturbing to me with age.

There are some disturbing trends out there, and it's clear to see the cause-and-effect in many cases. Kids are figuring out that if you dance on camera, you get a lot of views - but if you dance on camera in your underwear, you get A LOT MORE views. These sites are putting forth little to no effort to curb this kind of content, and there is little public oversight.

It's not illegal, but there are people profiting off of the ad revenue associated with this content, and there are children sexualizing themselves online, often without their parent's knowledge. It's not something we should ignore, because this is just going to keep getting further normalized as people try to downplay what is actually happening.

And there are people out there who become fixated on online personas, and this can lead to some very dark scenarios. The last thing we need is adults preying on children in environments that children frequent, and parents are ignorant of. These places are candy shops for pedophiles, and kids often don't notice that their peers on these sites aren't always fellow kids...

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#86

Post by gkanai »

philfrasty wrote: post #53

While $1B is certainly a lot of money this is the first time (in a long time) I would have rather seen the founder not sell. Musically has a very unique approach to encourage and enable users to create content that I have not seen on any other platform (challenges, smooth video creation process, etc). While I am certainly not in the target demographic I am sure we will see this approach in future (video)content platf…

> I would have rather seen the founder not sell.

You're not in his shoes. He has investors that probably pushed him to sell when they all saw that growth had plateaued. Selling gives the founders and investors all 'wins.' Once they took VC money, their future was either sale, IPO or bankruptcy, so the sale was the logical choice.

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#87

Post by hbosch »

RIMR wrote: post #85
hbosch wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, the criticism of this app being used for kids to sexualize themselves was what early doomsayers shouted down about both Vine and Snapchat, among almost all other video-social startups. I don't think it's a valid or reasonably realistic concern. Secondly, you definitely need to source some evidence for the claim about pedophile communities.

I am writing an article right now (to be published soon) about this, and I can tell you that there are lots of underground communities that just share YouTube, Musical.ly, Snapchat, etc. links for sexual reasons, with no attempt to hide the pedophilic nature of their viewing. I am not about to post links to these places, for obvious reasons, but perhaps I'll post my article once it is finished. If HN had a PM system,…

I would be thoroughly interested to read the article when you finish it, please share.

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#88

Post by samschooler »

throwappstore91 wrote: post #78
samschooler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its currently #58 on the app store. They are getting at least 150,000 downloads a month [1]. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-downloads-do-I-need-in-the-Ap...

At least 150k a month is an understatement. My app ranks around ~ 150 in Photo & Video (musical.ly is #6 in that category) and get that many downloads a month. Musical.ly must have at least 1-2M download a month for that ranking.

Thanks for the input! I searched around quickly and couldn’t find a reliable current source.

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#89

Post by glenstein »

hbosch wrote: post #77
RIMR wrote: post #68

I think it ought to be noted that Musical.ly videos are frequently passed around pedophile communities online. It worries me that an app designed for preteens to film themselves dancing can swell to such a size. Parents have completely stopped being accountable for what their children do online, and the consequences thereof...

First off, the criticism of this app being used for kids to sexualize themselves was what early doomsayers shouted down about both Vine and Snapchat, among almost all other video-social startups. I don't think it's a valid or reasonably realistic concern. Secondly, you definitely need to source some evidence for the claim about pedophile communities.

I don't think those criticisms of Vine or Snapchat were necessarily wrong. I suspect it's a problem at Youtube to greater or lesser degrees at different times as well.

Re: Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1B

#90

Post by rhizome »

smacktoward wrote: post #74
stanleydrew wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how much "traditional" TV you've watched recently, but they are very not wrong.

Are you kidding? Television over the last 10-15 years has been in a golden age of scripted drama. There's still a lot of crap on the tube, but there's also more good stuff than there's been at any time in history.

But knowing that means you're 10-15 years behind the attention spans and tastes that new television (and mass media in general) caters to and is increasingly produced by. It's a, if not the, generational shift.
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