Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is massively popular and it appears YouTube wants in on the game, as according to unnamed sources speaking to The Information, Google plans to launch its own rival soon:
YouTube is planning to release a rival to TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing app, by the end of the year, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The rival TikTok app would be called ‘Shorts’ and would be built into the existing YouTube mobile app. Benefits of the ‘Shorts’ app from Google would include licensed music and songs on YouTube available for users to share with their wild dancing videos.
“The move represents the most serious effort yet by a Silicon Valley tech company to combat the rise of TikTok, a rare example of a Chinese-owned social media app that has become a global hit,” reports The Information.
Any TikTok rival built inside the YouTube mobile app would instantly have an audience, while the company could also leverage its existing influencers to push traffic to ‘Shorts’.
The YouTube rival to TikTok would apparently debut sometime in 2020 (in other news, I still have no clue what the hell TikTok actually is).
