Bytedance has quietly launched a new social app called “Whee” and it looks AWFULLY similar to Instagram’s layout.
👉 Background: ByteDance is the Chinese company that owns TikTok - the social media app that got us all through lockdowns and sent phrases like “hawk tuah” and “brother ewww” into the stratosphere. But US lawmakers have been pushing to ban the app for its 180 million monthly active users in the US.
👉 What happened: Now, Bytedance has quietly launched a new social app called “Whee” and it looks AWFULLY similar to Instagram’s layout. It hasn’t run any ads on Apple’s Search Data and isn’t available in Australia, the UK or the US yet.
👉 What else: While Whee currently has less than 10,000 downloads globally, it could be seen as Bytedance's way to diversify away from TikTok.
💡In the game of risk, the smart money diversifies. While companies like Meta have diversified away from just Facebook to Instagram and Whatsapp, Bytedance is a one-trick pony.
💡Having a total ban of TikTok in the US would seriously impact Bytedance's business since TikTok posted revenue of about $16 billion USD last year in the United States.
💡Whee isn’t actually Bytedance’s first back up plan. They previously launched Lemon8 - with its Pinterest/Instagram-like-platform but this only has 2.6 million iOS users. So maybe Whee is its last shot at glory in the US… just in case the ban actually goes through.
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