The massive social-media site TikTok is trying to take on music streaming services.
Key Details
- TikTok has dominated the social-media world and is trying to add more notches to its belt.
- Since music is so popular on the app TikTok is trying to cash in on it. The app’s parent company ByteDance Ltd. has been talking with music labels about expanding its music-streaming service Resso to compete with popular streaming apps like Spotify.
- Music is a big part of the famous app and TikTok is trying to cash in.
Why it’s news
TikTok has taken the social media world by storm as it has quickly risen to the top. The app is one of the most popular in the U.S. and has reached over 2 billion downloads globally.
The app has caused many songs to become number one hits. TikTok creators make dances to songs or funny videos with the song playing in the background and it turns the song into a “trend” that garners millions of views.
Many songs that trend on the app reach the top charts, including “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, which spent five weeks at number one and recently tied the record for most weeks spent on the chart.
The song that shares the record—the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights”—also heavily trended on TikTok, according to Wall Street Journal writers Jessica Toonkel, Anne Steele, Salvador Rodriguez.
ByteDance currently has a streaming service called Resso that is only available in India, Indonesia, and Brazil. The company wants to take Resso worldwide and eventually integrate it into the TikTok app to make it easier for users to stream the popular songs all in one place.
In order for this dream to become a reality ByteDance will have to secure deals with all major music companies, which hasn’t happened yet, but could in the future.
TikTok’s Other Ventures
TikTok wants to become a one stop shop where users can have everything they could want in one app.
Not only is the app trying to compete with Spotify, but also another major company—Amazon.
TikTok is planning to build its own U.S.-based product fulfillment centers that could challenge e-commerce giant Amazon.
The rapidly growing platform is extending itself to e-commerce as shown by multiple job listings on LinkedIn. The job listings state that TikTok is looking to build an international fulfillment center, similar to those run by Amazon.
