After a decision made by the app's parent company, TikTok's AI is now purchasable, along with other technology.
The TikTok train is chugging along, smooth as ever, and people are having fun on the ride. The social media video-sharing application is slowly growing into its role as Vine's successor, and with much more success. The application is more or less synonymous with current trends and Gen Z culture as a whole, even if it's heavily used by millennials as well. Overall, the application's one of the most popular online platforms currently, and its success is constantly ongoing. Despite many bumps in the road, with countries such as India banning the app outright and the USA threatening to do so on multiple occasions, TikTok has experienced steady growth and is projected to keep doing so in the foreseeable future.
Naturally, with such success, people will attempt to gauge what it is that makes the platform so successful. While that answer most definitely lies in it's short video format, which can easily entertain for hours at time, the app's recommendation algorithm deserves some recognition as well. Much of an individual's TikTok interface is adorned with clips that they would most probably enjoy. These TikToks are curated by an AI system that continually takes input from what a person watches, and updates their recommendations accordingly. Much like YouTube's own recommendation algorithm, it's a great tool that helps the TikTok interface by a lot.
And it is that very AI being sold online by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance. ByteDance, for those unfamiliar, is a Chinese internet technology company. It's most notable ticket to fame, TikTok, became the app it is today by merging with another app called Musical.ly. ByteDance's quiet purchase of Musical.ly sets the company apart from other tech giants, choosing to take a no fanfare approach to business. In that very spirit, ByteDance has also quietly started up another division by the name of BytePlus. It's purpose is to sell TikTok's recommendation AI, along with other tools from the platform.
Despite ByteDance's refusal to comment on this new division, for now, BytePlus already has a few customers. The American fashion app Goat is currently using code from the platform, as well as a few Indonesian companies. There's a lot of business potential in such an endeavor, if a little more publicity is elicited from ByteDance. This is the sort of technology newer startups can rely on as well, as opposed to building up recommendation AI from scratch. After all, code from a well-recognized online platform is worth the price tag.
Photo: VCG via Getty Images
H/T: FT.
Read next: TikTok extends the video time frame from 1 to 3 minutes - rolling out soon for everyone
The TikTok train is chugging along, smooth as ever, and people are having fun on the ride. The social media video-sharing application is slowly growing into its role as Vine's successor, and with much more success. The application is more or less synonymous with current trends and Gen Z culture as a whole, even if it's heavily used by millennials as well. Overall, the application's one of the most popular online platforms currently, and its success is constantly ongoing. Despite many bumps in the road, with countries such as India banning the app outright and the USA threatening to do so on multiple occasions, TikTok has experienced steady growth and is projected to keep doing so in the foreseeable future.
Naturally, with such success, people will attempt to gauge what it is that makes the platform so successful. While that answer most definitely lies in it's short video format, which can easily entertain for hours at time, the app's recommendation algorithm deserves some recognition as well. Much of an individual's TikTok interface is adorned with clips that they would most probably enjoy. These TikToks are curated by an AI system that continually takes input from what a person watches, and updates their recommendations accordingly. Much like YouTube's own recommendation algorithm, it's a great tool that helps the TikTok interface by a lot.
And it is that very AI being sold online by TikTok's parent company, ByteDance. ByteDance, for those unfamiliar, is a Chinese internet technology company. It's most notable ticket to fame, TikTok, became the app it is today by merging with another app called Musical.ly. ByteDance's quiet purchase of Musical.ly sets the company apart from other tech giants, choosing to take a no fanfare approach to business. In that very spirit, ByteDance has also quietly started up another division by the name of BytePlus. It's purpose is to sell TikTok's recommendation AI, along with other tools from the platform.
Despite ByteDance's refusal to comment on this new division, for now, BytePlus already has a few customers. The American fashion app Goat is currently using code from the platform, as well as a few Indonesian companies. There's a lot of business potential in such an endeavor, if a little more publicity is elicited from ByteDance. This is the sort of technology newer startups can rely on as well, as opposed to building up recommendation AI from scratch. After all, code from a well-recognized online platform is worth the price tag.
Photo: VCG via Getty Images
H/T: FT.
Read next: TikTok extends the video time frame from 1 to 3 minutes - rolling out soon for everyone
