17 October, 2024
TikTok launches expanded subscriptions feature for creators
TikTok announced on Monday that its redesigned “Subscription” monetization offering is rolling out to eligible creators in select regions, including Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, the U.K., Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. The company says it plans to expand the feature to more markets in the coming weeks.
The official rollout comes as TikTok said back in March that it was going to rename its LIVE Subscription monetization tool to “Subscription” and would soon expand it to non-LIVE creators.
TikTok’s Subscription offering is its answer to Patreon, a creator platform that allows people to share exclusive content with paying subscribers. TikTok’s feature also competes with Instagram Subscriptions and YouTube’s channel memberships, both of which allow creators to grow their earnings by giving users access to additional content and perks.
The expansion means that regular creators will now be able to provide paying subscribers with exclusive content and other perks. Creators can offer their subscribers three different tiers at three different price points, each providing various exclusive perks for a monthly fee.
Subscribers can get access to exclusive content, including videos, LIVEs, and notes that are only visible to paying users. Subscribers can also get access to perks like additional communication channels, such as Sub Space, which is an exclusive space for creators to interact with their subscribers.
Plus, subscribers can get unique stickers to use during LIVEs and badges that appear next to their names on their profiles and in comments.
Creators can also offer custom perks designed specifically for their community. A TikTok spokesperson explained in an email that customized perks are more benefits that creators can choose from a ready-made list provided by TikTok. These include performance requests, Discord roles, shout-outs, behind-the-scenes videos, the ability to game together, and more.
To access Subscription, creators need to be at least 18 years old and have at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 video views in the past calendar month. Creators’ accounts must also be in good standing.
FTC refers TikTok child privacy case to Justice Department
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that it has referred a complaint against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to the Department of Justice. The agency was investigating the company over potential violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and was looking into whether TikTok violated a law that prohibits “unfair and deceptive” business practices.
“The investigation uncovered reason to believe named defendants are violating or are about to violate the law and that a proceeding is in the public interest, so the Commission has voted to refer a complaint to the DOJ, according to the procedures outlined in the FTC Act,” the agency said in a statement.
TikTok issued a public statement noting that it has been working with the FTC for more than a year to address its concerns and that it is “disappointed” that the agency is pursuing litigation.
“We strongly disagree with the FTC’s allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed,” TikTok’s statement reads. “We’re proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we’ve done to protect children and we will continue to update and improve our product.”
The FTC notes that although it doesn’t typically announce that it has referred a complaint, it “determined that doing so here is in the public interest.”
TikTok paid $5.7 million in 2019 to settle FTC allegations that it illegally collected personal information from children. The settlement marked the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the Commission in a children’s privacy case, according to the FTC.
The announcement comes as TikTok is facing increased scrutiny in the U.S.
In April, President Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok if ByteDance fails to sell it within a year. The action was the result of years of concern from U.S. lawmakers who fear that ByteDance may leak U.S. user data to the Chinese government. TikTok and ByteDance responded to the bill by suing the government, arguing that the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s commitment to “both free speech and individual liberty.”
TikTok's Instagram rival, Whee, has no traction
TikTok earlier this month launched a new social app called Whee, an Instagram-like service for taking photos to share with friends. Like Instagram, Whee also supports the use of photo filters and includes messaging. However, the company’s plans for Whee aren’t clear, as the app has relatively few downloads and has yet to advertise itself via Apple’s Search Ads, according to new data from app intelligence firm Appfigures.
Without marketing support, new apps remain largely invisible on today’s App Store. That appears to be the case for Whee, as well, which quietly launched June 18 in 71 countries worldwide. Due to the lack of promotion, Whee didn’t find its way into the Top Free Apps chart on Apple’s App Store, nor did it immediately become one of the Top 500 Social apps in its supported markets, though that later changed.
Am I the first one to report this? Bytedance, the developer of Tiktok, is testing a new app called Whee. It's currently not available in the US but it is live in over a dozen countries.https://t.co/iNVQlVQ5C2https://t.co/n9rKnrHovE
— Artem Russakovskii (@ArtemR) June 18, 2024
Whee is connected to TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance but is published by TikTok, not its parent, according to its App Store listing.
As of Tuesday, Whee had only gained 13,000 total global downloads on iOS and somewhere north of 10,000 Android downloads, per Google Play data. It’s also clearly not being pushed in the U.S. for the time being, as its top markets on iOS include Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Peru and Indonesia. Still, those countries are only contributing a small number of downloads.
For instance, the No. 1 market, Malaysia, delivered 2,400 downloads while Indonesia rounded up fifth place with just 800 installs. Because of the small numbers, these are likely downloads from people who randomly came across Whee while searching the App Store. In smaller markets with fewer apps, Whee made it into the Top 500 Social apps, though never as high as the Top 10 and mostly well past 50.
What’s more, Appfigures says ByteDance hasn’t yet tried to advertise Whee via Apple’s Search Ads, which help apps rank highly when App Store users search for apps using specific keywords. There hasn’t been any Apple Search Ads activity connected with Whee as of yet, the firm found. In addition, user feedback from those who found Whee is also fairly tepid, as the app has an Overall rating of 3.6 out of 5 globally, across 31 App Store ratings, only 10 of which have reviews.
ByteDance has not commented on its plans for Whee, but the timing of the app’s launch has raised eyebrows given that President Biden officially signed the TikTok ban into law in late April after the House passed a revised bill that forced either a TikTok ban or sale. (TikTok has since sued the U.S. to block the law from coming into effect, which will at least delay the ban for some time while the legality is worked out in the courts.)
Whee’s arrival could be a plan B of sorts that allows ByteDance to maintain a social presence in the U.S., even if TikTok’s ban is upheld.
This isn’t the first time ByteDance has tried to generate interest in other social apps outside of TikTok. Earlier in 2023, the company quietly launched another Instagram-like app, Lemon8 in the U.S. and U.K., and even paid TikTok influencers to post about the app in order to seed its initial content. Those efforts didn’t immediately pay off; by November 2023, the app’s U.S. downloads on iOS had only reached 2.5 million — great numbers for a new startup, but nothing near the size of TikTok, which has over a billion monthly active users, including the 170 million in the U.S. However, Lemon8 could be a slow-burn attempt at growth. Today, it’s the No. 2 Lifestyle app in the U.S., with nearly 7.7 million iOS installs in this market.
ByteDance also operates another popular video app, CapCut, often used for making TikTok videos. And it briefly dabbled with a BeReal rival, TikTok Now, though that was shut down after less than a year. Currently, it’s testing another Instagram competitor, TikTok Notes.
Whether Whee will follow the same playbook as Lemon8 remains to be seen. But if your favorite TikTok influencer starts randomly talking about Whee at some point in the future, be aware they were probably paid to do so.
Directo turns a TikTok travel hack into a deal-finding Chrome extension
A travel hack that went viral on TikTok teaches users how to save money on hotels and Airbnbs by booking directly with the properties themselves. Now, a new startup, Directo, will help travelers find those same deals with the help of a Chrome extension that points you to the property’s website, where you’ll often find discounted rates as the property doesn’t have to pay commission on those sales.
Across social media, creators and influencers post variations of a money-saving hack that teaches users how to find a cheaper way to book a room or a home stay. This often involves using reverse image search on photos of the listing to find the property’s website — something that can be particularly useful when booking longer stays where the savings can really add up.
@humphreytalks Money Hacks 💰 (1st Hack Credit: All the Hacks Podcast) #lifehack #learnontiktok #tiktokpartner
♬ SUNNY DAY – Matteo Rossanese
Of course, booking directly may have its risks. You may not have the same travel assurances and protections compared with bigger websites, like Booking.com, Expedia or Airbnb. But when travelers are looking at savings in the hundreds of dollars or more, they often opt to take their chances.
The idea for Directo came about from watching this emerging behavior among Gen Z users and realizing that it could be better automated, while also adding in some safety protections of its own, says co-founder and co-CEO Pierre Becerril.
“What we’re doing is we’re trying to work with professional inventory that uses great software — so at least you know that this part is secured,” said Becerril, whose background is in the travel industry, after participating in a TechCrunch hackathon inspired him to join the tech industry. Most recently, the Madrid-based, third-time founder sold his startup Transparent, a software company focused on the vacation rental market, to Lighthouse, where he worked before starting Directo.
Becerril explains that many hotel sites today run what he calls “very good tech” and feature powerful booking engines, but they aren’t the first place users go to book. Instead, consumers tend to go to online aggregators and larger websites where they can search across a wider inventory of listings.
“The big websites like Expedia, Booking.com and Airbnb have the monopoly for search and distribution,” Becerril said. “It’s a pity because they charge commission and you can go book direct on these great websites where there’s no commission — and maybe some perks.”
Some savvy travelers already figured this out, finding they could avoid the extra fees and cleaning charges on Airbnbs by booking from the property’s website itself, which they found using a reverse image search.
@chelletravelfoto Reverse image search for the win! 💪 #airbnb #travelhacks #traveltips #budgettravel
♬ Tomorrow – Adrian Berenguer
Directo aims to make it easier to book directly by identifying those properties that it knows to use a modern tech stack that promises a safe checkout process. That can, at least, alleviate users’ concerns that the sites will work correctly and their credit card transactions will be secure. It also relies on its community to submit other websites for consideration and to flag those where they successfully found great deals.
The Chrome extension works on a variety of top travel sites, like Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Expedia and Abritel, with more being added in the future. It identifies the properties where you can book directly with a yellow-and-black “D” icon. Those where users reported getting a good deal will also feature a cheers emoji of hands clapping. If users report the deals aren’t great, Directo can take that information to the hotels and use that to try to negotiate for a voucher or discount for its customers.
“It’s a little bit like Honey,” says Becerril, referring to the deal-finding browser add-on PayPal acquired for $4 billion in 2019.
Also like Honey, the extension is free to use by consumers, who can download it from the Chrome Web Store. The startup generates revenue by selling a subscription to hotels that can improve their connectivity with Directo by pushing special deals to its users and members. These funds are currently being reinvested in marketing to grow its consumer install base.
In testing, Directo reached 115,000 users and now includes nearly 200,000 hospitality brands that each has at least one property in its database of inventory. Combined, that represents millions of properties and rooms around the world.
The startup itself was co-founded by digital nomad and co-CEO Marina Guastavino, CTO Julian Toledo and Sofia Canepa (Growth and Product Development). Becerril wasn’t able to join full-time until a couple of months ago due to obligations following the sale of his prior company.
Directo has $1 million in pre-seed funding from French VC firm Kima Ventures; Calafia, an angel group of Global Female Tech Leaders; travel specialist fund Derive Ventures; and 26 travel industry veterans.
Vimeo joins YouTube and TikTok in launching new AI content labels
Vimeo joins TikTok, YouTube and Meta in implementing a way for creators to label AI-generated content. The video hosting service announced on Wednesday that creators must now disclose to viewers when realistic content is created with AI.
The new updates to Vimeo’s terms of service and community guidelines ensure that videos that are AI-generated, synthetically created or manipulated aren’t mistaken for real people, places or events. This is a notable move for Vimeo as it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and fake content created by advancing generative AI tools.
Vimeo doesn’t require creators to disclose content that is clearly unrealistic, such as animated content, videos with obvious visual effects or that uses AI for minor production assistance. However, videos that portray a celebrity saying or doing something they didn’t do in real life or show altered footage of an actual event or place should have an AI content label.
Additionally, the company said that AI content labels will appear on videos that use Vimeo’s set of AI tools, such as a tool that can delete long pauses and disruptions in speech.
A distinct label now appears at the bottom of the video, indicating that the creators voluntarily disclosed their use of AI. When uploading or editing a video, creators can select a checkbox for AI-generated content and specify whether AI was used for audio, visuals or both.
Vimeo is currently leaving it up to the creators to label their AI-generated content. However, the company is working on an automated system that detects AI and labels the appropriate content.
In an official blog post, CEO Philip Moyer wrote, “Our long-term goal is to develop automated labeling systems that can reliably detect AI-generated content, further enhancing transparency and reducing the burden on creators.”
Moyer, who only just joined this past April, has previously spoken about Vimeo’s stance on AI. In another blog post, he told users that Vimeo is protecting user-generated content from AI companies by prohibiting generative AI models from being trained on videos hosted on the platform. Similarly, YouTube’s Neal Mohan has explicitly stated that using videos on the platform to train models — including OpenAI’s Sora — is a violation of its terms of service.
FTC and Justice Department sue TikTok over alleged child privacy violations
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department are suing TikTok and ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, with violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The law requires digital platforms to notify and obtain parents’ consent before collecting and using personal data from children under the age of 13.
In a press release issued Friday, the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection said that TikTok and ByteDance were “allegedly aware” of the need to comply with COPPA, yet spent “years” knowingly allowing millions of children under 13 on their platform. TikTok did so, the FTC alleges, even after settling with the FTC in 2019 over COPPA violations; as a part of that settlement, TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million and implement steps to prevent kids under 13 from signing up.
“As of 2020, TikTok had a policy of maintaining accounts of children that it knew were under 13 unless the child made an explicit admission of age and other rigid conditions were met,” the FTC wrote in the press release. “TikTok human reviewers allegedly spent an average of only five to seven seconds reviewing each account to make their determination of whether the account belonged to a child.”
TikTok and ByteDance maintained and used underage users’ data, including data for ads targeting, even after employees raised concerns and TikTok reportedly changed its policy not to require an explicit admission of age, according to the FTC. More damningly, TikTok continued to allow users to sign up with third-party accounts, like Google and Instagram, without verifying that they were over 13, the FTC adds.
The FTC also found issue with TikTok Kids Mode, TikTok’s supposedly more COPPA-compliant mobile experience. Kids Mode collected “far more data” than needed, the FTC alleges, including info about users’ in-app activities and identifiers that TikTok used to build profiles (and shared with third parties) to try to prevent attrition.
When parents requested that their child’s accounts be deleted, TikTok made it difficult, the FTC said, and often failed to comply with those requests.
“TikTok knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy, threatening the safety of millions of children across the country,” FTC chair Lina Khan said in a statement. “The FTC will continue to use the full scope of its authorities to protect children online — especially as firms deploy increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil kids and profit from their data.”
TikTok had this to share with TechCrunch via email: “We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed. We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform. To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screen time limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”
The FTC and Justice Department propose fining TikTok and ByteDance civil penalties up to $51,744 per violation per day and a permanent injunction to prevent future COPPA violations.