We're about to see a lot of TikTok clones and "TikTok for articles" or "TikTok for podcasts" type apps. TikTok surprised everyone when it blew up in a space that many people thought was crowded and too competitive. While it still trails Facebook's over two billion monthly active users, TikTok grew to almost seven-hundred million monthly active users in less than two years which is faster than any other social media or entertainment app (this is how they did it). The breakthrough that allowed TikTok to achieve this kind of growth is an algorithmic feed that adjusts in realtime to show you content based on what you engage with. You won't have to follow or "like" anything to get started, the algorithm just optimizes the feed based on what kind of content you spend time engaging with or sharing. Some companies will clone this algorithmic feed, while others will apply it to new verticals. Below are some examples.
Just today, Shuffle, an app for podcast discovery and sharing launched a beta on Product Hunt. Just like TikTok, the feed consists of a vertical scroll that plays short clips of podcasts (up to 60 seconds for now) with a background that can consist of that usually gives you some insight into what the clip is about as well as subtitles to follow along. While still in its early stages, the concept is interesting and I found it was easy to let yourself slip into a trance while doing something else like cooking or cleaning and let the clips keep rolling (you can download and try it out here).
https://storage.googleapis.com/shuffle-web-assets/Home-page-video.mp4#t=0.001
The reason this makes so much sense is that Podcast discovery is still really bad despite how much the space has grown. Podcasts are some of the lengthier pieces of content we consume. Many podcasts are longer than movies, lasting three or even four hours. The only time I really ever try new podcasts is when I have a long drive ahead of me because it is one of the few moments that I have enough uninterrupted time to dive in. Since I don't usually have that many opportunities to dive into a new podcast, I usually need to hear a lot of good things about a podcast before I'm willing to take a risk on something new. The result is that over the past two years I've only tried three or four new podcasts, even though I listen to podcasts on a weekly basis.
This is where Shuffle provides a simple solution to the complex problem of discovery. A feed of short clips makes it really easy to get a flavor for what different podcasts are like, before making the commitment to listen to a whole episode. Also I imagine as they improve the algorithm, the feed will begin to show me things I like more consistently, while potentially introducing me to topics I didn't know I was interested in. Also on the flip side, for podcast creators, this makes finding audiences and listeners a lot easier.
This one is interesting as it comes from Facebook's "new product" team, which is tasked with developing and testing new product ideas. The focus of E.gg is on sharable media canvases that to me feel like a digital version of 90's self-published zines (they're definitely trying to target your 90s nostalgia with this one). While the focus seems to be more on creative expression and imitating the randomness of the early internet, the feed feels and operates a lot like TikTok (except you swipe left/right instead of down). You can sign up to be on the waiting list on their website.
These are just two examples I've seen recently. I can imagine we're going to start seeing a lot more in the coming months. Also we've already seen companies like Instagram add Reels into their app which is meant to mimic the functionality of Tiktok (albeit with a focus on promoting content from accounts that already have a lot of followers). Who knows, maybe Wikipedia will launch a "TikTok for articles" that will show users wikipedia pages on the topics they're interested in. Overall it's an interesting evolution in the feed, one that is optimized around discovery and helping content creators find their audiences and vice versa. This type of feed inherently drives growth as long as content creators and users can successfully be paired. What other "TikTok for x" type apps do you think are on the horizon?