Dominating the short-form media domain apparently isn’t enough for TikTok. The Chinese company, under ByteDance’s watchful eyes, is reportedly looking to broaden those horizons with a new photo-sharing application called TikTok Notes. If that’s the moniker they’re going with, we’d hate to see what made it to second place.
While Twitter/X is still considered the king of text — an area TikTok will likely try and invade with an app called ‘TikTok Snap’ or something similar — Meta’s Instagram still rules the photo-sharing realm. It’s here that Notes will have to make its stand if it has any hopes of breaching the cultural zeitgeist. Considering the app’s posting strategy, it might just work.
Taking on the big dogs
Neither TikTok nor its parent company ByteDance has yet announced its new Notes app in any official capacity, though according to screenshots from some users, an in-app notification has begun appearing and foretells that “TikTok Notes, a new app for photo posts, is coming soon.” (Thanks, TechCrunch). A TikTok spokesperson later confirmed to TechCrunch that it was working on the app, noting that it wasn’t yet available.
“As part of our continued commitment to innovating the TikTok experience, we’re exploring ways to empower our community to create and share their creativity with photos and text in a dedicated space for those formats,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch.
While taking on one of the biggest companies in the world might be a daunting task, TikTok Notes isn’t turning up to the battle empty-handed. Judging by the notification the internet has since scoured, “your existing and future public TikTok photo posts will be shown on TikTok Notes.” The experience opts users in automatically and those unwilling to participate will need to turn it off manually.
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Considering the somewhat scummy opt-in tactic and the fact that users have been able to post images to TikTok for more than a year and a half, by the time TikTok Notes does launch, it’s sure to have a sizeable catalogue of users and images to flaunt. Whether it’ll be enough… remains to be seen.