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TikTok and the Sorting Hat

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Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#91

Post by prionassembly »

hardtke wrote: post #81
chvid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not media format (short video clips) but the "sorting hat". That it breaks the traditional social media model with a news feed, discussions, a social graph of friends. I think it is completely meaningful to call it next generation (or second generation where the social graph model is the first generation). Also notice that this model can be applied to other media formats: Text, pictures, audio ...

This thread is completely missing the draw of TikTok, at least as it pertains to my teenagers. TikTok makes it fun and compelling to create content. My teenagers will actually go places with their friends to "make TikToks." The reason it is compelling, and this is not true of any other current social network, is that good content will get eyeballs -- the algorithm seems to be "fair" in terms of playing your content t…

Yes. Even the vaunted algorithm is merely an improved way of doing this. I remember when "the long tail" became a slogan. What was meant was that if popularity is a power law, then at every level there's a shorter long tail. The point was to accentuate this, to find the celebrities in each niche and monetize them. The underlying mental model has always been the one from broadcasting.

Maybe TikTok comes from China because Communist ideology still influences the Chinese; or because they didn't have a Dick Cavett and a Frank Sinatra, celebrity TV. The ceremonies for the 1980 Moscow Olympics had no celebrities, but a diorama of the dozen Soviet cultures from the Ukraine to Kirghistan. The 1984 Olympics in the US had Lionel Ritchie. But Communists or not, the early promise of the internet was that you could participate, and it doesn't feel you can participate on Twitter.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#92

Post by bigpumpkin »

creeble wrote: post #87

The article mentions that TikTok owes a lot of its early traction to its predecessor, musical.ly. but there's no mention of how/whether musical.ly got license for their lip sync music. Was the success of musical.ly (and by some large extension, TikTok) based on the difficult-to-stop (because China) pirating of music? I now unleash the piracy-is-not-theft dogs...

They used licensed music

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#93

Post by reedwolf »

"On my way in and out of this office, just one of several Bytedance spaces all across the city, I gawked at hundreds of workers sitting side by side in row after row in the open floorplan. It resembled what I’d seen at tech giants like Facebook in the U.S., but even denser."

--

As much as US devs whine about open offices, it could be worse.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#94

Post by newen »

hardtke wrote: post #81
chvid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not media format (short video clips) but the "sorting hat". That it breaks the traditional social media model with a news feed, discussions, a social graph of friends. I think it is completely meaningful to call it next generation (or second generation where the social graph model is the first generation). Also notice that this model can be applied to other media formats: Text, pictures, audio ...

This thread is completely missing the draw of TikTok, at least as it pertains to my teenagers. TikTok makes it fun and compelling to create content. My teenagers will actually go places with their friends to "make TikToks." The reason it is compelling, and this is not true of any other current social network, is that good content will get eyeballs -- the algorithm seems to be "fair" in terms of playing your content t…

Yep, I’ve come across a couple of times in my for you page videos posted with 0 likes from 0 follower, 0 following accounts. And plenty of low likes and followers accounts. It gives anybody a chance and that makes it engaging.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#95

Post by greeniron »

dilap wrote: post #57
sandworm101 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the effect of monopolies stifling innovation. Less monopolies, more so western culture. Many of TikTok's algorithms would be subject to great scrutiny if run by a western company. YouTube would face riots if it were caught openly supressing or hiding videos of disabled, unattractive, or simply poor people. But such "innovation" is fine for a Chinese company. https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/tiktok-disabled-use…

I feel like this is overblown, because I see ugly and poor people in tiktok all the time (if doesn't matter if you're ugly or poor -- you can still make compelling content), and I occasionally see disabled people too. Perhaps this is true for the very first content you see, but not true once the algo becomes personalized?

the entire TikTok India is filled with content from the lower caste. like, literally if you check out all the viral ones like the cringey indian joker, or the very popular one with the 2 really bad acting siblings, they were all shot in the slums.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#96

Post by seemack »

quicklime wrote: post #70
sandworm101 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the effect of monopolies stifling innovation. Less monopolies, more so western culture. Many of TikTok's algorithms would be subject to great scrutiny if run by a western company. YouTube would face riots if it were caught openly supressing or hiding videos of disabled, unattractive, or simply poor people. But such "innovation" is fine for a Chinese company. https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/tiktok-disabled-use…

I feel like as of late, when China sees some success that the US does not, there’s a sentiment that they succeeded only because they’re a lesser society. They have fewer coronavirus cases only because Chinese people are docile, obedient sheeple who hate freedom, or TikTok succeeded because Chinese corporations are happy to discriminate against groups that western corporations would obviously protect out of the goodne…

> there’s a sentiment that they succeeded only because they’re a lesser society

Can you clarify what you mean by "lesser society"?

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#97

Post by skinnymuch »

bsoist wrote: post #2

Very interesting. We might make real progress as a species if we can leverage this more generally as a society. Also, I expect the "machines" to disrupt the film industry in a very similar way.

What progress as a species can be made? I am not seeing how any of this is progress.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#98

Post by Cactus2018 »

elldoubleyew wrote: post #54
jhedwards wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat anecdotal but the Chinese app game in general seems very strong. My wife does video editing on Chinese social media and the variety of apps she has for editing videos and photos is bewildering. She can add in all kinds of animation and video effects, and different apps will provide different editing experience and features. I look in the US apple store for video editing and I just don't see that kind of vari…

Because for many young Chinese video editors a cell phone is all they have ever had and all they ever want to use. The wests adoption of the personal computer introduced video editing there, and the companies who make the editing software have mostly kept it there.

Funny that the only tool I've seen is from 'Adobe'.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-rush/how-to/premiere-rush-f...

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#99

Post by creeble »

bigpumpkin wrote: post #92
creeble wrote: post #87

The article mentions that TikTok owes a lot of its early traction to its predecessor, musical.ly. but there's no mention of how/whether musical.ly got license for their lip sync music. Was the success of musical.ly (and by some large extension, TikTok) based on the difficult-to-stop (because China) pirating of music? I now unleash the piracy-is-not-theft dogs...

They used licensed music

Musical.ly did? How did they negotiate that license, I wonder?

Let me put it another way then: Is the success of musical.ly and its successor TikTok really about somehow getting licensed music on a platform out the gate? And the sorting hat is just a good refinement that wouldn't have a chance to exist without the licensing?

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#100

Post by canjobear »

catalogia wrote: post #52
gazelleeatslion wrote: post #46

Modern day tobacco. 100% unregulated addiction. FB, TWTR, GOOG, INSTA, everyone switched from timeline to personal recommendation engines and TikTok is just doing it so much better. Where will things be in 5, 10, 50 years? Terrifying and exciting. Do these tech companies sit on research to suggest that these algorithms can induce behavior-changing tactics through trial-and-error? Will they all have their tobacco-caus…

> Do these tech companies sit on research to suggest that these algorithms can induce behavior-changing tactics through trial-and-error? Facebook was running mood-manipulation experiments years ago and thought it was worth bragging about publicly. https://slate.com/technology/2014/06/facebook-unethical-expe...

They found extremely small effects.
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