There videos are tiny so buffering is less of an issue
Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
61–70 of 152 posts
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#62I think it's eastern tech culture. East tends to assume everyone is interchangeable and not as intelligent, and tries to bring people up via education. Whereas West tends to just hire talent and let them figure it out.
Not everyone here speaks a common language, and if it is, it's almost certainly English. So documentation and communication is greatly simplified, smaller words, and a lot of conversing through code.
Let's compare two mature technologies between east and west, Google Maps vs Huawei Map SDK:
Google map quickstart: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android-sdk...
Huawei map: https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/doc/development/HMS...
There's subtle differences here, but Google tends to use a lot more English words, and Huawei talks mostly in code.
System analysts are common, who act as living documentation. Basically people who you can always interrupt to ask questions. PM isn't sure if a feature is possible? Ask the analyst. Dev doesn't know the right endpoint or understand how something works? The analyst takes time to explain it to them. They generally don't hold the responsibility of development and during periods of low utilisation, they learn the architecture or do R&D.
In MMOs, they would be the tank, while the devs focus on being DPS.
So personally, I think the key is that they rely less on the skill of the individual, and focus heavily on teamwork. Also this is probably an analysis of Huawei more than ByteDance/TikTok, but I assume the culture is more similar.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#63I don’t have any unique insights into TikTok nor do I use the app, but TikTok has several product advantages over those other platforms: 1. They only have a queue of videos. That means there is one video playing and they know exactly what the next N videos are going to be, so they can start buffering them early 2. The video plays are high intent. If you launch TikTok, you are 100% going to watch videos. This is not t…
This list is focused on videos but the search is what is beyond good, it's one of the best searches I've ever seen for content. You can literally use it as you would google. I'm assuming they transcribe their videos as well as run some object detection or image to text models that generate some metadata as to what is happening and or who or what is in a clip.
You are talkabout tiktok? The search is terrible. You can't order by date, no filters. Has this magically improved overnight?
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of the tech jobs are not in China: https://jobs.bytedance.com/en/position?category=670421586260... Chinese FAANG is probably geared more towards hardware, things like Xiaomi and Huawei.
Yes, they are. That's a link to the English language site, and it shows 310 openings under the R&D category. Click the link for "Careers in China" in the footer and filter by R&D: 6526 job openings. https://jobs.bytedance.com/experienced/position?category=670...
That was a perfect example of selection bias, lol. Thanks.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#65> Compare that to the Reddit video player or the Twitter video player or Vimeo. It's much better.
The difference between TikTok and e.g. Reddit is that on TikTok the user wants some video, whereas on Reddit the user wants that video.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, they are. That's a link to the English language site, and it shows 310 openings under the R&D category. Click the link for "Careers in China" in the footer and filter by R&D: 6526 job openings. https://jobs.bytedance.com/experienced/position?category=670...
That was a perfect example of selection bias, lol. Thanks.
Heh, I only went and poked around because it has bitten me before. It seems to be a pattern with a lot of Chinese companies to have their own domestic facing sites, and then an entirely separate Western-facing presence.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#67Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#68I'm curious how cloud they are. Maybe they have an advantage by starting after the maturity of cloud platforms, using the latest and greatest, and avoiding all the redesign cycles? Or maybe they don't cloud at all and that is their advantage? Or maybe that has nothing to do with it.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#69I don’t have any unique insights into TikTok nor do I use the app, but TikTok has several product advantages over those other platforms: 1. They only have a queue of videos. That means there is one video playing and they know exactly what the next N videos are going to be, so they can start buffering them early 2. The video plays are high intent. If you launch TikTok, you are 100% going to watch videos. This is not t…
Even ignoring these things, they seem to do pretty well. I only use TikTok by being linked to it, and the video always works. The same cannot be said of Reddit, which often just shows a spinner, or sometimes it gets stuck midway through the video, or sometimes keeps playing sound even when you navigate to a different page. I think Reddit is just especially terrible. They had to write custom code for handling the view…
The worst experience for me is trying to play videos in the google photos mobile app (or the website). It can take 1-2-3-4 minutes (or never) for it to finally play a video I uploaded from my phone a few days, weeks ago.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#70Last week I was travelling on a different country. I was mostly without WiFi and I bought a prepaid SIM card with some GB. TikTok ate 2GB of "background data" in two days, even if I did not open the app. So it's not hard for me to guess how they do it... (Yes, background data is now disabled for TikTok on my phone... I learned my lesson)
Won't be long before some cell plans have special discounts for TikTok data like with WhatsApp. Unless it's a thing already.
It's a thing, especially in developing countries. You often get xGB data with an additional xGB social media data.