ByteDance, the social network’s parent company, filed a patent application for an app called “TikTok Music” in May.
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After having established itself in the middle of social networks, TikTok could compete in another area: music streaming. As discovered the site Business Insiderits parent company, ByteDance, filed a patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office for an app called “TikTok Music” last May, after filing one in Australia in November 2021.
Accessible on smartphone and computer, this application would allow users to buy, play, share and download music. They would also have the ability to create, share and recommend playlists and comment on music. They could also broadcast live audio and video in the areas of entertainment, fashion, sports and news. TikTok would thus walk on the flowerbeds of music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
A company already present in the field of music streaming
ByteDance further mentions the presence of advertisements in its patent application. It is therefore possible that the TiKTok Music application offers a free offer including advertisements, as does Spotify. It would obviously be necessary to pay a subscription to avoid having to deal with ads.
The parent company of TikTok is not at its first attempt in the field of music streaming. In 2020, it launched an application called Resso in India, Brazil and Indonesia. It also has some of the features described in the trademark application, such as the ability to create playlists or share songs on social networks. Additionally, the company uses TikTok to direct existing users to Resso. In Brazil, the social network has a button redirecting users to the music streaming application so that they can listen to the full version of a song that interests them.
If ByteDance launches TikTok Music later, music streaming platforms have to worry about Resso’s popularity. At the beginning of the year, Business Insider the revealed that active users of the app grew by 304% between January 2021 and January 2022 in India, while Spotify only saw 38% growth over the same period in the country.
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