TikTok’s making an attempt out yet one more app because it seeks to develop engagement alternatives, and faucet into broader utilization tendencies.

TikTok’s newest app experiment is one thing referred to as “Whee”, which is an Instagram-like feed of photos, designed to solely be shared with mates.

As defined by TikTok:

“Whee is a brand new social app created to maintain you linked together with your shut mates by means of life’s spontaneous moments. Seize and share real-life pictures that solely your pals can see, permitting you to be your most genuine self. Whee is the perfect place for shut mates to share life moments.”

However grasp on, didn’t TikTok already launch a nonetheless picture based mostly app?

Sure, sure it did.

Again in April, TikTok launched a separate app referred to as “Notes”, which can also be a photograph sharing app.

That app additionally seems to be like Instagram, although it seems to be much more like TikTok’s different separate app “Lemon8” which it launched final 12 months.

Lemon8 is extra particularly targeted on merchandise and promotions, so the use case isn’t the identical as Whee and Notes.

So what makes Whee and Notes totally different, and why is TikTok so hell-bent on facilitating picture sharing, alongside its fundamental short-form video app?

Properly, by way of distinction, Whee appears to be targeted on good friend sharing solely, whereas Notes is a extra broad viewers kind app.

Notes is described on the App Retailer as:

“TikTok Notes is a way of life platform that provides informative photo-text content material about individuals’s lives, the place you may see people sharing their journey suggestions, every day recipes, and extra.”

So it’s extra of an IG-like public sharing platform for visible content material, versus enclosed sharing.

With reference to why photos, that doubtless pertains to Chinese language market tendencies.

Tencent-backed Xiaohongshu, one other Instagram clone, has seen a giant rise within the Chinese language market of late, which has additionally expanded into eCommerce alternatives.

Seemingly, TikTok’s hoping to copy the identical with Notes in Western markets, whereas Whee would lean into extra personal sharing, and perhaps present customers with extra methods to share photos of merchandise, providing additional analysis perception for TikTok advert concentrating on?

I don’t know, however eCommerce is TikTok’s fundamental focus, and it looks as if it must be tied again to that one way or the other.

Both method, it does seem to be an odd launch, particularly contemplating that individuals already conduct most of this kind of exercise on Instagram or Snapchat.

However TikTok’s making an attempt it out anyway, and it’ll be attention-grabbing to see if/how they give the impression of being to entice customers throughout to the brand new visible app.