Trying out TikTok’s top competitors
When TikTok went off the air (to use a very old-fashioned phrase), there was a scramble to find an alternative to its shortform video feed — and a similar scramble by various social networks to provide that alternative. (In fact, while I was writing this, Tumblr launched its new Tumblr TV feature.) The question is: how successful are they?
Most certainly operate like TikTok. You scroll up to see the next short video, and you can like videos, follow their creators, or leave a comment. There are sometimes minor differences across services — for example, while most automatically repeat a video until you swipe away, X’s video feed automatically moves to the next one. But because most of these new and new-ish services are trying so hard to be the next TikTok, most aren’t offering anything innovative to make them stand apart.
On the other hand, the types of videos you’ll find on each service will vary, at least somewhat. If you have a history with a service — for example, if you’ve been on Facebook or Instagram for a while — that may be used to determine which videos you see.
What follows is what I found when I tried out the TikTok-ish options included with some well …