In the space of just two years, the app Douyin, created by Beijing-based company ByteDance, has gathered more than half a billion users—around 40%of them outside China—who share short videos of themselves lip-syncing (假唱), cooking, dancing or just being silly. What sets ByteDance apart is its success in the social media category, which is controlled by Facebook, Twitter and Snap—all Western companies.
ByteDance calls itself an artificial intelligence company. It uses machine learning and algorithms (算法) to figure out what people like most and give them more of what they want to see. On Douyin, people can edit and beautify 15-second videos before posting them online. The app has even made a phrase to describe people glued to their customized feeds: "shua Douyin" or "scrolling through Douyin". Last year, the company released TikTok, the overseas version of Douyin. ByteDance's growing video empire has made it the world's fifth biggest app maker. ByteDance says TikTok and Douyin together have more than 500 million monthly active users.
Investors like ByteDance because its hundreds of millions of users attract a lot of advertising money. The video apps are lucrative because they attract a lot of users in their teens and 20s, who are more generous with the money. ByteDance also makes money through income sharing deals. People on TikTok, for example, can buy digital coins to give to other people on the app—like throwing money in a performer's tip jar. ByteDance takes a cut of those earnings.
ByteDance's founder and CEO is Zhang Yiming, a 35-year-old former Microsoft employee. People who have worked with Zhang describe him as someone who thinks deeply about technology and spends much of his free time writing code.
Like Facebook and Twitter, ByteDance is also battling fake news and inappropriate content. ByteDance promises to add thousands more employees to review content on Douyin.
