US video-sharing app Triller counts Donald Trump among its 65m users
It almost looks as if Donald Trump Jr is on TikTok. In an eight-minute clip clearly filmed on his phone, the president’s son quickly dismisses that impression as he rails against the popular video app’s alleged subservience to the Chinese Communist Party.
“But you know what?” he says. “There’s an option that you can go to that’s an American company, that’s not saving your data, that’s not going to eventually weaponise it against your children … Triller is that option. Triller is that choice.”
Older British smartphone users would be forgiven for wondering what exactly a Triller is. Since its foundation in 2015 the Los-Angeles based short video app, which bills itself as the “adult version of TikTok” and has a major office in London, has largely flown under the radar, despite the patronage of celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Alicia Keys and Selena Gomez and an investment from Snoop Dogg.
But this year TikTok’s woes have become Triller’s opportunity. Last October, it had around 13m active users per month; in August, after the president threatened its Chinese rival with a total US ban, that number shot up to 65m, with 35m new joiners in the space of just a few days. TikTok, meanwhile, is thought to have 800m users worldwide and 100m in Europe alone.
TikTok boom Downloads during coronavirus are three times higher than nearest competitor Instagram
TikTok superstars have also jumped ship, often citing privacy concerns, and one of them – the 18-year-old Canadian influencer Josh Richards – has become Triller’s chief strategy officer.
Its latest coup has been to recruit not only Don Jr but The Donald himself. Trump is a relatively active poster, with about 60m views so far, and a number of American conservative creators have followed him to the app, although their overall audience remains small.
“From the very beginning, because of this US-China rivalry, Triller has been called the American TikTok,” says Anis Uzzaman, a general partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, which invested in Triller earlier this year. “Politicians are very interested in addressing Generation Z, and they’re finding these platforms to be the most effective way to reach out to them. A big portion are eligible to vote, and [politicians] want to have their mindshare and their support.”
Triller declined to comment on whether it reached out to or negotiated with the Trumps. The company has previously drawn heavily on celebrity connections, signing licensing deals with big record labels and attracting investments from rappers Lil Wayne and Kendrick Lamar. Its majority owner is Ryan Kavanaugh, a Hollywood producer famous for his early use of Moneyball-style statistical models to pick projects, as well as his role in creating the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Uzzaman downplays any specific appeal to conservatives, saying: “Triller is heavily used by Hollywood celebrities, and Hollywood celebrities are all liberals. Nobody is saying it is the tool of liberals. We remained neutral … why not Joe Biden?” Instead he credits the app’s American ownership and strong copyright protections.
Alongside the Trumps, however, has come a more troublesome constituency: QAnon. The cult-like conspiracist movement, which believes America is ruled by a cabal of Satanist paedophiles and mounts vicious digital attacks against enemies of the president, has been banned or restricted by TikTok, Facebook and Twitter and is regarded by the FBI as a possible terror threat. Triller has taken no such steps, even inviting users who view QAnon hashtags to “join the challenge” and post their own videos.
Triller also declined to comment on that, while Uzzaman disclaims any strong stance. “Who is going to make the judgment of what is right and wrong?” he says. “You take one side and the other side is going to be unhappy. And if you do not take a side, you will still be guilty.”
That position will endear Triller to users who resent the algorithmic censorship of big social networks. But it could prove a liability for big advertisers, not to mention the many celebrities that QAnon has accused of consuming the blood of children. At present the movement’s footprint on Triller is minor – for now. Triller has other obstacles to overcome. TikTok devotees will find its video editor painfully simple, and the app is sometimes awkwardly slow.
Its strategy of using artificial intelligence to automatically varnish users’ videos, rather than to precisely tailor their feeds to match their tastes, may prove a blind alley. Even if TikTok is banned in the US – which could happen as early as this week if its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance is unable to sell it to an American company – there will be fierce competition for the spoils from other imitators such as Byte and Instagram Reels.
Triller’s ascendance comes as TikTok engages in urgent talks to sell its US business to avert a ban that would see its 100m American fans left seeking an alternative. The fire sale has led to a parade of potential buyers, some unlikely future parents of the teen-focused app.
Microsoft was considered the front-runner for a $30bn (£23bn) deal. Its bid has since turned into a joint effort with Walmart, the grocery giant founded in 1962 that many analysts see as an awkward fit. Oracle, another US software giant, and Twitter have both been linked to potential bids.
Meanwhile, China is said to oppose any sale of the US arm of TikTok. The Chinese government holds an effective veto over any export of TikTok’s algorithms.
Uzzaman is bullish, saying his investment preceded TikTok’s travails. He argues that Triller’s video-tuning AI and host of celebrity users makes ordinary people too “feel like celebrities”, and that the short video market will soon be big enough for multiple apps to “coexist”. Alternatively, if the US does ban TikTok, he believes Triller will benefit more than its competitors from the “huge surge” of users because it is “the closest platform, with the most similar tools and functionalities”.
The company is so confident that it put forward its own bid for TikTok, backed by the investment firm Centricus Asset Management – or so it claims. TikTok says it has received no such bid. Asked about that, Uzzaman first insists that the bid was made to ByteDance over TikTok’s head; when told ByteDance also denied the story, he professes himself baffled.
Regardless, Triller is now raising another $250m in an investment round that would value the company at $1bn. Given the threat from Facebook and Microsoft, and the fact that TikTok spent a reported $3m per day on advertising just to make headway, it will need all the help it can get.
Triller’s high hopes are summed up by a sign on the wall inside its headquarters: “TikTok is for kids.” Triller had better hope that the kids, as well as the Trumps, agree.
Свежие комментарии