> Thus, they didn't go after TikTok. It was a mistake.
What are you talking about - they went after TikTok exactly the same way as they did after Snapchat: By cloning the feature and making it prominent in the app, then double-listing them in the main Big Blue App, too.
Instagram added Stories to copy Snapchat and they are still prominently at the top of the app.
Then they added Reels to copy Tik Tok and it's the primary central bottom button of the app, and also one of the first things you see in the Facebook app.
The hilarity though is that Tiktok watermarks exported videos. Vast majority of "Reels" on Instagram have Tik Tok watermarks.
They're failing to destroy Tik Tok the way they succeeded in destroying Snapchat (effectively) for a couple of reasons though:
1) Snapchat was primarily for person-to-person communication (their attempts at highlighting "creators" was always awkward. Instagram already had all the celebrities, and what grows success in "social networks" these days isn't the social graph between peers but parasocial graphs with big time creators
2) Snapchat was always technologically inferior. The quality of the photos and videos was awful. The AR filters were slow. Instagram offered higher quality and better performance. TikTok doesn't have that problem. It's blazing fast and for the kind of meme content it is best for, video quality isn't important.
3) TikTok's For You Page (FYP) recommendation algorithm is truly groundbreaking, and will be remembered in 10 years the way we remember panning around on Google Maps and not having the page reload. It is truly incredible how effectively it learns content you might be interested in after some engagement, and crafts an FYP that feels like it's speaking directly to your anxieties, sense of humor, neurosis, aspirations, goals, etc.
You can call it creepy and you can worry about how all this information about your personality is going to the Chinese government, but that's a separate issue...
That's exactly what Im talking about. They thought they can win this round by copying features of TikTok into Insgagram, just like they did with Snapchat.
They were wrong. They should've gone after TikTok by acquiring it. Just like they did with Instagram.
What are you talking about - they went after TikTok exactly the same way as they did after Snapchat: By cloning the feature and making it prominent in the app, then double-listing them in the main Big Blue App, too.
Instagram added Stories to copy Snapchat and they are still prominently at the top of the app.
Then they added Reels to copy Tik Tok and it's the primary central bottom button of the app, and also one of the first things you see in the Facebook app.
The hilarity though is that Tiktok watermarks exported videos. Vast majority of "Reels" on Instagram have Tik Tok watermarks.
They're failing to destroy Tik Tok the way they succeeded in destroying Snapchat (effectively) for a couple of reasons though:
1) Snapchat was primarily for person-to-person communication (their attempts at highlighting "creators" was always awkward. Instagram already had all the celebrities, and what grows success in "social networks" these days isn't the social graph between peers but parasocial graphs with big time creators
2) Snapchat was always technologically inferior. The quality of the photos and videos was awful. The AR filters were slow. Instagram offered higher quality and better performance. TikTok doesn't have that problem. It's blazing fast and for the kind of meme content it is best for, video quality isn't important.
3) TikTok's For You Page (FYP) recommendation algorithm is truly groundbreaking, and will be remembered in 10 years the way we remember panning around on Google Maps and not having the page reload. It is truly incredible how effectively it learns content you might be interested in after some engagement, and crafts an FYP that feels like it's speaking directly to your anxieties, sense of humor, neurosis, aspirations, goals, etc.
You can call it creepy and you can worry about how all this information about your personality is going to the Chinese government, but that's a separate issue...