Internet mega-platforms are slowly merging into one big set of similarities, and even the world’s most dynamic companies are not immune to this trend. TikTok’s winning strategy of focusing on short-form vertical video has found fans among other internet platforms, and now TikTok is taking a page from its rivals’ books, seemingly borrowing from what made them popular.
TikTok is working to launch a new app called TikTok Notes that will allow users to post images in an apparent bid to compete with Instagram, a service best known for its static photo sharing functionality. Instagram, of course, has expanded into video and Stories, taking elements from other services and incorporating them into its own product.
Other services from Meta, Instagram’s parent company, are also frequent borrowers. Like almost every social service you can imagine. Remember that big Stories boom that led everyone from Line to Spotify to Instagram to LinkedIn to try the popular sharing format. If it works for one social media service, expect others to follow in some way at some point – probably sooner rather than later.
There is good logic behind this effort. The answer is why X wants to become a superapp; The more a service can offer its user base to do, the more time they can spend inside the app’s walls. Expanding a feature set can increase the engagement time and therefore revenue that a social media service can generate. At the same time, bloat is a real problem that can dilute the user experience and make an app, well, Facebook on time.
This theme — the slow commodification of digital services via evenification – is similar to why we see LinkedIn trying to emulate the power of the New York Times game and, to some extent, why big tech platform companies end up trying to be good in everything: the endless need to increase their income. Maybe that’s why your favorite app looks more and more like an alien world as time goes by. It will evolve away from what made it special and unique, but because sticking to those weapons is not the way to create a service that the most people will use. To do this, you must become Facebook.
techcrunch
