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TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

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Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#81

I am happy for these news. Facebook has a monopoly on social media, and it’s good for competitors to grow strong enough to challenge it.

In theory that sounds nice but as far as trusting a company with my privacy/data, a Chinese backed social network is probably one of the only entities I would trust less than Facebook.

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has a track record of jumping from platform to platform do they really though? It honestly seems like particular brands are very sticky with internet demographics, not just young people. IIRC there even is more brand loyalty among ecommerce than there is among physical brick and mortar stores. You can look at something like Whatsapp as well. There have been lots of privacy concerns after the acquisition by Facebook…

In my experience, the claim that the younger generation hops around is fair. I'm 26. Between the ages of 15 and now, my primary social media platform has hopped between Myspace, Facebook, Reddit, 4chan, YouTube, some diary site, PSN(PlayStation Network), Hacker News, and probably others. I've dipped my toes into countless other ones. I've kind of stopped hopping around as much, but other people my age still hop betwe…

> I've kind of stopped hopping around as much

So at 26, you're getting old? :)

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#83
post #19
post #5

I really can't fathom how this is possible. The largely young demographic (which I'm guessing warrants this valuation) has a track record of jumping from platform to platform, whichever is trendy for a given year. With that in mind, how are investors seriously willing to get behind this company in such a big way?

TikTok is fun. If you're not on it, it's hard to understand.

I tried it multiple times, but I've always got low-quality-video fatigue when after have seen the same dance moves 20 times by different people for the same music.

With Youtube I can watch conference videos that contain genuinely new content forever, but I don't see that happening with TikTok. Also it spams my mobile notifications, so I had to delete it, even though I don't delete too many apps.

For young people who have their friends on it, it's probably fun to see them, but for me I just hope that forced TikTok integration won't be the next one on Tinder.

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#84
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was able to leverage their popularity with college students into a larger platform that had mass appeal with all age groups. I don't see why TikTok can't add features and get the same results.

YikYak is another possible path for it to go. Feel free to invest wherever you want, but personally I don't have the stomach for it.

> YikYak is another possible path for it to go.

People complained about YikYak being anonymous. The problem is that YikYak listened to the complaints rather than their users.

Every social media company upsets its users at some point. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Digg. The moat, platform stickiness, and competition shape outcomes.

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#85
post #5

I really can't fathom how this is possible. The largely young demographic (which I'm guessing warrants this valuation) has a track record of jumping from platform to platform, whichever is trendy for a given year. With that in mind, how are investors seriously willing to get behind this company in such a big way?

ByteDance isn't just TikTok, which is what the headline doesn't include. They also own Toutiao (Chinese news/content platform, top 100 website in China), Helo (Indian social media, the Google Play app alone has 2.2M reviews), Lark ( https://www.larksuite.com/ , an enterprise collaboration platform aimed at the Japanese market).

ByteDance did $20bn of revenue in 2019. The comments in this thread are… wow. Lots of opinions from my favourite HN cameo character, "Person With Vitally Important Opinions About Complex Topic But No Time To Read Beyond The Headline."

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#86
Pretty insane. It will be replaced by another app-du-juor in 4 years. Social apps follow a pretty predictable schedule where cohorts are strongly associated with high school and college demographics moving through phases of their lives.

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#87
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok is fun. If you're not on it, it's hard to understand.

Snapchat is fun. If you're not on it, it's hard to understand.

X is fun for the next 4 days. If you're not on it, you're uncool and don't jump on whatever is popular because it's popular.

X =

Email#

IRC#

ICQ

AIM

Yahoo Messenger

Friendster

MSN Messenger

MySpace

Flickr

Orkut

Google Talk

Skype

Google Wave

Facebook

Youtube#

Twitter#

Vimeo#

G+

WhatsApp

Periscope

Vine

Instagram

Snapchat

TikTok

Zoom

# Only exceptions, so far

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ByteDance isn't just TikTok, which is what the headline doesn't include. They also own Toutiao (Chinese news/content platform, top 100 website in China), Helo (Indian social media, the Google Play app alone has 2.2M reviews), Lark ( https://www.larksuite.com/ , an enterprise collaboration platform aimed at the Japanese market).

ByteDance did $20bn of revenue in 2019. The comments in this thread are… wow. Lots of opinions from my favourite HN cameo character, "Person With Vitally Important Opinions About Complex Topic But No Time To Read Beyond The Headline."

True, but I'm sure that Bloomberg's paywall isn't helping on that front.

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#89
post #5

I really can't fathom how this is possible. The largely young demographic (which I'm guessing warrants this valuation) has a track record of jumping from platform to platform, whichever is trendy for a given year. With that in mind, how are investors seriously willing to get behind this company in such a big way?

The tendency of young people to jump from platform to platform is partially an illusion caused by the fact they don’t remain young. You see this especially in dating sites — people used to think OkCupid could never make money because it was dominated by 18-to-25-year-olds. Now it’s mostly people in their 30’s, and the prior king of 30-somethings, Match.com, is for people over 40. The same thing happened with Tinder,…

> padding the feeds of less valuable users with ads

This is horrifying when you consider this happens in every avenue of life and will only become better targeted as technology progresses.

Re: TikTok has recently traded at valuations of $105-110B on private markets

#90
post #5

I really can't fathom how this is possible. The largely young demographic (which I'm guessing warrants this valuation) has a track record of jumping from platform to platform, whichever is trendy for a given year. With that in mind, how are investors seriously willing to get behind this company in such a big way?

I think Twitch could be a valid comparison to TikTok. Both are content-focused platforms that draw in audiences from a variety of somewhat non-overlapping demographics, but exist in the same space. They've already branched out into livestreaming, and I think a logical next step would be leaning even heavier into Twitch-style community building features while simultaneously promoting the app's base of viral social media video content.
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