Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Which part of the Twitter files show this?
Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
111–120 of 152 posts
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#112To write something obvious: companies generally don’t succeed or fail based on their technology. A good user experience is necessary for TikTok to do well but it doesn’t matter whether they achieve because of ‘good’ tech, whatever that is, or in spite of it. I think there were a few things for the business where tech was important: - being good at serving/storing videos - the recommendation engine. There are two part…
>But I could be pretty wrong there. The history of TikTok is actually murkier than that. I listened to a podcast about this, I wish I could find it again. The narrative that seems to be popular is that ByteDance launched this app called Douyin in China and it was so successful they decided to launch it globally, and thus TikTok was born and hit the ground running. But the podcast I listened to told the story from the…
I thought this was common knowledge but I guess not. But then again I lived with my preteen siblings when the whole musically/TikTok merger happened so for them it was huge news
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s serverless
For someone who doesn’t know much about this stuff, what does that mean?
my understanding is that in a serverless architecture the dev does not manage the server, there still is one but its managed via third party cloud services who expose basic server or database functions which your app can plug into.
think a "like count" database, it needs to increment and persist. Both very simple, and its implementation is entirely decoupled from the client implementation. Firebase would manage that for you, youd just call firebase functions instead of updating a database yourself.
note: i dont know if this is how tiktok works
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
CDNs usually cache the plaintext object rather than the encrypted stream. What I’d believe is that they started with a CDN which charged more for HTTPS support - I believe they used Akamai at one point, which would make sense since they had some of the best presence in China in the 2000s and into the 2010s and DEFINITELY charged noticeably more for HTTPS unless you could negotiate well.
It used to be not uncommon for some ISPs and corporations/schools to run transparent caching HTTP proxies. I don't know how much of that still exists, but anything helps.
One of the benefits of HTTPS everywhere was breaking the bad versions of those systems: I remember Vodafone ES having one which cached resources far longer (months) than the Cache-Control headers allowed, and mobile ISPs used ByteMobile to over-compress images.
You still see opt-in proxies, which are at least better in the sense of the user being able to see the config & trust relationship when something breaks.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#115Reddit is not a great comparison. It looks like the video elements of reddit were cobbled together quickly and just left in place since it sort of worked. It won't annoy too many users when most content doesn't use reddit's video player.
If TikTok did this, 100% of it's users would be affected.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#116Most people don't realize that mobile app penetration in China happened earlier and to a much greater degree than in US/Europe, because many people skipped the PC stage and went straight to mobile. Apps like Weibo, Weixin (WeChat) and Zhifubao (Alipay), were used by a very large percentage of the population. It was very rare to meet someone anywhere in China who didn't have Weixin on their phone (and I left in 2017 so probably even more now). Tech was very mobile-first. All that to say, Chinese companies like Tencent had tons of experience creating very full-featured and well-designed mobile apps that could handle a LOT of traffic given the sheer numbers in China. So while I don't particularly like or use TikTok, it doesn't at all surprise me that it is so slick. People assume ByteDance was a new company but its Toutiao news aggregation app was extremely popular in China before it bought/merged Douyin + Musicaly to create TikTok.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#117Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#118I 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…
> ByteDance might have financial backing and motivations that make it easier to throw more money at this problem than its American competitors. American VC can provide almost unlimited money. What it can't do is focus its spending on things that actually work. The original question frames this in terms of technical talent, but it's not that at all. There are all sorts of US firms and even HN posters who could, given…
I'm sympathetic but remember failed start ups that too are trying to succeed[0] on their on merits are a dime a dozen. It explains somethings but not why they succeeded.
[0]...or at least until being bought out by the big players you mentioned
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#119What sold me on Tik Tok (I'm a early 40 year old guy!) was realizing how their algo allowed you to drill in to a musical emotional trip like no other platform that I've seen to date. You find a video, with a song, that you vibe with. Now, click on the bottom right sound graphic and you can watch ALL the videos produced with that sound and vibe. It is part of the core product! So good it's hard to describe :)
I also love how a creator can respond to a comment with another video and you are able to read the comment and click it in the new video to go back to the original comment and video they are responding to. Same with stiches and duets.
Re: Ask HN: Techwise, how did TikTok get so good?
#120This paper by various folks at Bytedance hints at their recommender architecture: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2209.07663.pdf
I'm amazed they are publishing anything about it. It would seem like that's an important trade secret.