TikTok and Mark Zuckerberg

TikTok, known in China as Douyin, is a popular socio-digital network of Chinese origin that allows you to share short videos in vertical format, which can last from one second to ten minutes.

The videos do not have a certain period of reproduction. When they finish, they start over in an infinite loop.

In principle, not a few specialists and most of the press dedicated to celebrating the introduction of new gadgets, considered TikTok as an ephemeral fashion among children and adolescents.

However, TikTok has established a true watershed in the history of socio-digital networks. Due to the elementary principle of survival, some platforms, Facebook, for example, have chosen to imitate TokTok.

TikTok is the international version of Douyin, a socio-digital network that was introduced to the Chinese market in September 2016. TikTok was launched two years later. However, TikTok and Douyin are not identical, between the two it is possible to notice some differences.

TikTok and Douyin are owned by ByteDance, a technology and internet company based in Beijing but domiciled in the Cayman Islands. ByteDance was founded in March 2012 by Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo.

In February 2017, ByteDance acquired the Flipagram firm. In July of that year, ByteDance launched the short video platform UGC Hypstar (Vigo Video), and in November it acquired Musical.ly., incorporating the aforementioned firms to TikTok.

TikTok was released in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of China. However, the worldwide launch of TikTok officially took place on August 2, 2018.

TikTok’s popularity was instant. According to what was established in the Digital 2022 April Global Statshot Report study, carried out by the firms We Are Social and Hootsuite, TikTok was ranked sixth among the socio-digital networks and platforms with the largest number of users.

According to the aforementioned report, the social digital networks and platforms with the highest number of users (July 2022) are: 1.- Facebook (2,912,000,000 users), 2.- YouTube (2,562,000,000 users), 3.- WhatsApp (2,000,000,000 users) 4 .- Instagram (1,462,000,000 users), 5.- WeChat (1,268,000,000 users), 6.- TikTok (1,000,000,000 users).

It is important to point out that Facebook Messenger was also located in sixth position, with a similar number of users to TikTok (1,000,000,000).

The total number of TikTok users in the United States was estimated at 136,418,000. By the number of users, the American Union represents the main market for TikTok. In Mexico, 50,515,000 users were estimated. Mexico represents the fifth market for TikTok.

Despite the significant difference between the number of Facebook users (2,912,000,000) and TikTok (1,000,000), Zuckerberg warns that TikTok represents a serious threat to his interests.

While the growth in the number of Facebook users has slowed in recent years, the observed increase in the number of TikTok users has been considerable.

The highest percentage of TikTok users is between 18 and 24 years old (23.8% women, 17.9% men). Precisely that segment of the population, and those under the age of 18, have been leaving Facebook in recent years.

Facebook’s life cycle seems to be running out. The platform is facing a major generational crisis, since not a few children, adolescents and young people perceive it as a socio-digital network of older people.

On October 28, 2021, within the framework of Connect 2021, Mark Zuckerberg not only announced the new name of the corporate Facebook -Meta-, he also announced the end of the age of socio-digital networks and the imminent transition to a new age on the Internet, the age of the metaverse.

Mark Zuckerberg envisions his metaverse as “an embedded internet, where instead of just viewing content, you’re on it.”

Zuckerberg does not propose his metaverse as a necessary contribution to making the Internet better; he has conceived of his metaverse “as the beginning of a better reality.”

Zuckerberg estimates that in the next decade, his metaverse will have 1 billion users — the number of users TikTok has today.

However, the presentation of his metaverse, which is under construction, was abrupt.

Two factors possibly weighed on Zuckerberg’s mood.

1.- The devastating leak of the Facebook Papers, in September 2021, by Frances Haugen, who released thousands of internal Facebook documents to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the Senate and the Wall Street Journal.

2- The tremendous growth that TikTok has seen in recent years.

According to what was established in the Kantar Brandz Global Report 2022 study on the most valuable brands in the world, TikTok was ranked 53rd and its value was estimated at 43,483 US$Thousand. Facebook was installed in the eighth place, and its value was located at 186,421 US$Thousand.

In the aforementioned study, Kantar calculated the depreciation of the value of Facebook at 18%, considering the value that the platform had registered in 2021.

Throughout its history, Facebook -today Meta- has acted as a true predator against possible competitors. Zuckerberg’s logic is to buy, nullify or destroy all possible competition.

In 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram. The operation was estimated at 1,000 million dollars. Two years later, in 2014, Facebook bought WhatsApp for the sum of 19,000 million dollars.

However, an operation to acquire TikTok seems impossible. Zuckerberg will have to speed up the development of his metaverse while simultaneously prolonging Facebook’s inevitable death throes.