TikTok is eliminating its BeReal clone TikTok Now, according to notifications sent to users. Several Twitter users posted screenshots of the message in several languages, which read that ByteDance is "updating the TikTok experience and [is] disrupting TikTok Now."
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The news of his interruption arrives poco more than nine months after the official launch, although it is not clear when the feature will disappear permanently. Let's find out more details.
The reasons for the failure of TikTok Now
TikTok Now was launched in September with the stated aim of promoting "authentic and spontaneous connections on TikTok". But it was hard to ignore that its format was virtually identical to BeReal, which exploded in popularity last year. It actually asks(goes) the users to capture a moment once a day using the front and back camera of the phone. Just like BeReal.
What was new to TikTok was that TikTok Now supported videos up to 10 seconds long, as well as simple photos. In the United States, TikTok Now has been available in the main TikTok app, while owner ByteDance has launched a dedicated TikTok Now app in other regions of the world. Social media consultant Matt Navarra confirmed to The Verge that he received the notification announcing the discontinuation of TikTok Now within the main TikTok app on iOS.
While the TikTok notification doesn't give a specific reason why TikTok Now is shutting down, it's hard to ignore the fact that BeReal is no longer riding high. “They stopped being real,” was the New York Times conclusion in April when it quoted a 61% drop in daily active users of BeReal between October 2022 and March 2023, according to third-party data. According to Apptopia, the number of users dropped from about 15 million to fewer than six million in March, the NYT reported.
While BeReal disputes these numbers (“BeReal has more than 20 million daily active users worldwide,” it wrote in April), one can still see far fewer mentions of the app on social media platforms these days. Regardless of the exact figures, it appears the viral spotlight has shifted.
Even Instagram imitates BeReal
TikTok wasn't the only social media company to experiment with adding BeReal-style features to their app. SnapChat rolled out a dual-camera feature in August, which traded BeReal's daily notifications and limits for more editing and layout options.
In the meantime, too Instagram tested their own version of this feature, called “Candid Stories“. These copycats represent an attempt by dominant social media applications to fend off would-be competitors by aping their unique characteristics.
A success destined to end?
Despite introductions by social media platforms, these features seem like fads destined to end up in poco time. The BeReal case is emblematic: peak of success in 2022 and rapid decline after just a few months in 2023.
The closure of TikTok Now is consequential. And truth be told, you don't hear much about Instagram's Candid Stories. At least here in Italy. But the trend is quite similar in the rest of the world as well. If something doesn't work, it's useless to try again and again.
However, at the moment TikTok has not yet released an official announcement and the support page of the service has not been updated. And among other things, the social team has not said anything about it. We must therefore presumably wait a few days before we understand what the fate of TikTo Now will be.
Source | The Verge
