Facebook creation of Tik Tok competitor signals Chinese companies’ leadship

Facebook is reportedly creating a Tik Tok competitor to win back the attention of teens, a move that an expert said signals Chinese internet companies’ leading position in many areas of the industry.

Facebook is working on a new app called Lasso that sounds a lot like Tik Tok, a rapidly growing Chinese social media app for creating and sharing videos as well as live broadcasting, TechCrunch, a US technology news outlet, reported on October 24.

“That a US internet company has started learning from Chinese competitors is a signal that Chinese companies are leading in many areas in the industry,” said Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based industry analyst.

ByteDance, the $75 billion Chinese technology conglomerate that owns Tik Tok, has become the world’s most valuable start-up, the Telegraph reported on Wednesday.

“Chinese internet companies are no longer just followers,” Liu told the Global Times. Now, some of their innovation has stood the test of the market and surpassed that of US competitors, he said.

“It’s possible we'll see more US companies start to learn from China’s online products in (online-to-offline), smart logistics or other areas,” Liu added. “They indeed offer many lessons to others.”

Under the headline "China’s King of Internet Fluff Wants to Conquer the World," the New York Times reported on Monday that ByteDance said more than half a billion people worldwide use Tik Tok at least once a month.

“Tik Tok has seized young people’s eyeballs and started a trend that went from China to the world,” Liu said. "The short videos of cute pets, lip-synching and dancing on the platform are incredibly addictive and easily go viral.”

In recent years, Facebook’s strategy to protect its dominance has been to clone competitors, because Facebook has the one thing they don’t, a robust social graph, the Intelligencer reported.

However, Liu said that there is no blame in Facebook, a social network giant, adding emerging successful social media features to its own platform.

“It’s normal for internet companies to learn from others in the industry,” Liu said. “It’s not cloning.”