Page 16 - Forbes - Asia (June 2018)

FORBES ASIA
TENCENT TENSION

BYTEDANCE

TO THE MUSIC

The super-unicorn’s Douyin video site is cutting in on
WeChat’s hold on Chinese youth.

BY YUE WANG

thena Yang learned about Douyin from her boy- regularly invites social media stars to participate in company-
friend and soon became hooked. he 29-year- hosted online video contests, where they challenge each other
old, who works at an investment irm in Beijing, or ask followers to broadcast clips to a certain theme. his has
now spends her lunch break and evening watch- given rise to viral online trends that upped the app’s popularity.
Aing music videos on the app, where people post For example, some 70,000 app users once raced to make hu-
15-second clips of themselves—dancing, singing or even apply- morous moves to the song “Seaweed Dance” by Chinese art-
ing makeup. “here is a lot of funny and creative stuf on Dou- ist Xiao Quan—a craze that inspired countless internet memes
yin,” Yang inds. “It is really relaxing and helps to relieve stress and o ine dancing contests across China. Douyin selects the
at work.” most popular moves to put in personalized feeds. And some
Developed by Beijing ByteDance Technology, Douyin, also online stars, such as 25-year-old music producer Zhou Yue, tell
known as Tik Tok, has taken China’s younger generation by Forbes Asia they can earn millions of yuan a year by making
storm. Similar to the popular music app Musical.ly, which Byte- videos for Douyin. Advertisers like automobile companies and
Dance acquired for $1 billion last year, it allows users to make, gaming studios are paying to work with them on related pro-
edit and broadcast short video clips to their favorite songs, motional songs that are shared across the site.
while using an algorithm to promote them in individually tai- “Douyin has been producing better-quality content than
lored feeds. Now Douyin’s explosive popularity is giving Byte- other short-video platforms in China,” says Chen Yuetian, a
Dance—a $20 billion startup also known for the Toutiao news partner at Chinese investment irm S. Capital. “Its clips are
app—an edge as it contends with Tencent to become China’s more fashionable and attractive to young people.”
media and entertainment powerhouse. Yet the irm is facing A year and half ater its launch, Douyin has attracted 166
YouTube-like challenges: Some of Douyin’s clips are drawing million active users, the majority of them under 30, according
scrutiny and a backlash online for inappropriate and potential- to Beijing consultancy Analysys International. hey spend an
ly dangerous content, adding to the regulatory grief ByteDance average of 12.6 hours inside the app monthly—an engagement
already faces. level surpassing the 12.3 hours spent at Tencent-backed video-
Douyin’s recent success comes from its content production sharing site Kuaishou, the irm’s data show. Meanwhile, Douyin
mechanism. As with most short-video platforms in China, it re- has been topping the downloading chart at the China iOS Store
lies on clips made by both professionals and amateurs to attract for months, and it even became the most downloaded non-
eyeballs. But ByteDance does it better than local peers: Dou yin game free app worldwide in the irst quarter this year—an ac-

14 | FORBES ASIA JUNE 2018