Internet users are currently riding an increased interest in quick, easy-to-consume video content. Social media platforms were very quick to adapt stories, or disappearing portrait photos and videos, soon after Snapchat emerged in 2011.
Now, Twitter is looking to clone TikTok’s features in a similar fashion… or better yet, buy another app that already has.
Will Twitter Soon Own ShareChat?
Three sources told TechCrunch that Twitter was looking to acquire Indian social media startup ShareChat in order to push it to compete with TikTok, a Chinese video-sharing service that has exploded in popularity over the last few years.
India banned TikTok in June 2020, which has since caused local startups and international companies to try and master the short-form video format.
Twitter reportedly offered to buy ShareChat for $1.1 billion, on top of a $900 million investment. However, the deal fell through for reasons unspecified. Some users speculate it’s because ShareChat partnered with Snapchat recently to launch Camera Kit.
Although ShareChat claims to have over 160 million users, it is said that Twitter’s primary interest was in Moj, a short-form video app that ShareChat owns. Moj describes itself a stage for “never-ending entertaining videos to watch and snack on,” and has over 80 million users.
Download: Moj for iOS | Android (Free)
At the time of writing, Moj boasts fairly high user ratings across the board: 4.6/5.0 stars on the App Store, and 4.3/5.0 stars on Google Play.
Twitter’s Other Endeavors
The microblogging service has made a lot of changes over the past few months. In November, Twitter rolled out Fleets. After Clubhouse garnered a bit of mainstream attention, Twitter announced they were testing Spaces—live chat rooms for users to have real-time conversations.
Twitter’s getting in on the news market, too. Twitter launched Birdwatch in attempt to get its users to help prevent spread of misinformation. And a mere three days after that, Twitter acquired newsletter service Revue and began integrating its features with the Twitter mobile app.
Twitter Explores Short-Form Video
The pandemic has forced many social lives into mainly digital spaces, and so a need has developed for services like Twitter and other online communities to broaden their product offerings.
Though out of all the major platforms, it almost feels the most natural for Twitter to want to challenge TikTok. While Twitter has always focused on text content instead of video, its “short but sweet” formula has been in place for years.
The two apps have always capitalized, just in different ways, on the same thing: the attention of users with short attention spans. It’s likely we’ll be seeing them clash some more in the future.