TikTok’s popular new short-video rival Byte is marking itself out by offering incentives for content creators
- Byte, launched just a little over a week ago, reboots the old Vine video-sharing service which Dom Hofmann co-founded in 2012 and later sold to Twitter
US short-video app Byte has already stood out from a crowd of TikTok competitors by vowing that a majority of the revenue it generates will go to content creators, a lure that its bigger rival has yet to offer.
Byte, created by Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann, has announced a program to reward content creators based on viewer figures. During an unspecified pilot period “100 per cent of ad revenue will go to creators” while the “long-term plan is to have a majority of the revenue going to creators,” it said in a statement on its website.
“After several years [TikTok] still doesn't offer any official way for its users to monetise their posted videos,” said Katie Williams, mobile insights strategist at analytics firm Sensor Tower. “Creators can earn revenue by being on TikTok, but that comes from branded or sponsored content – deals that users must negotiate themselves without TikTok's assistance – or, to a lesser extent, through ‘tipping’ on live-streams.”
“Receiving direct compensation based on viewing figures seems a lot more inviting and doable,” she said.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its compensation strategy.