[2/2] Attention Factory: The Story of TikTok and China's ByteDance (TikTok. Attention Factory. Takeoff story) (Category BusinessStory)

Continue. story About the book by Matthew Brennan, it should be noted that in ByteDance after the capture of the market of news aggregators with the application Toutiao ("Titles") It is a good product, but we need to expand. The look fell on the segment of short videos, which by that time did anyone laziness. For example, Tencent had a product called Weishi, which they launched a few years earlier than ByteDance. 2016 They shut down their product and bet on Kuaishou, the dominant player in the Chinese short video market. Tencent invested there. 350 Millions of dollars, but here on the scene appeared Douyin, which was positioned as a hybrid of Instagram and karaoke and unlike its competitors, it was focused on young audiences from major cities in China. This strategic positioning helped the app stand out from other platforms like Kuaishou, which was more popular in rural areas or small towns. Douyin’s content was fun and quirky, attracting a more educated, youthful and well-to-do audience highly regarded by advertisers and investors. Plus, they had an interesting approach. 1) To content. The company regularly invited social media stars to participate in video contests held in the app in real time. These contests marked the beginning of viral Internet trends, thanks to which the popularity of Douyin increased dramatically. 2) To personalize In fact, the guys took working algorithms from ToutiaoThey also did something like a canary rollout of newly poured videos, where by how well a video is received, they determine whether it is shown to a wider audience. Well, moderators connected and reviewed those videos that have already passed to the final and rolled out to the entire audience. 3) To finance ByteDance did not ask for financial assistance from the “big three” (Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba)Which was rare at the time. Instead, the company has repeatedly attracted private investment.

Then the guys from ByteDance decided to scale the product outside of China. They started in Indonesia, but Tiktok gained worldwide popularity in November. 2017 A year after the merger with Musical.ly, which ByteDance acquired for $800 It has a multimillion-dollar user base. Creating two identical apps for different markets has helped ByteDance grow globally without breaking the laws of its country. Douyin can only be downloaded in China and TikTok is only available to users outside of China. The book describes in detail how this expansion was arranged.

The last chapters focus on important topics The importance of recommendation algorithms that make TikTok so sticky and hooked (More in the book "Hooked" that I handler before and discussed podcast) Cultural characteristics of the company, management approaches, leadership and innovation n Challenges faced by ByteDance, including censorship, data privacy and geopolitical tensions, especially in the context of TikTok bans and restrictions in some countries. However, these topics are discussed at the end. 2020 Since then, the tension has increased.

In general, the book definitely seemed interesting and useful to me, I think I will give some paper versions to my colleagues who are engaged in content stories and social development:)

#Management #Leadership #BusinessStory