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TikTok sister app Douyin to deepen search capabilities, become ‘Google of short video’
- ByteDance-owned Douyin plans to increase investment in its in-app search function, which currently has 550 million monthly active users
- The sharpened focus on search is expected to help expand Douyin’s advertising revenue
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ByteDance-owned Douyin, the sister app of TikTok, plans to increase investment in its search capabilities to enable users to navigate through a rising sea of short videos, an initiative that could change the way internet users find information online and rival advances made by Google over the years.
The strategy was revealed by ByteDance chief executive Zhang Nan, who also heads Douyin, in an online post on Wednesday, which indicated that the platform’s search feature already has 550 million monthly active users. The app’s daily active users surpassed 600 million as of August last year.
“Many people have grown used to opening Douyin and searching for videos when they have questions,” wrote Zhang in her post on ByteDance’s news aggregator app Toutiao. The hope is that Douyin could become an “encyclopaedia of human civilisation”, so that video search would be how people increasingly look for answers and gain new knowledge, she said.
People looking for cooking recipes, for example, can search for cooking videos posted by content creators on Douyin. The platform can also help people search for video tutorials about dancing and musical instruments.
Douyin search users who are looking for pregnancy tips, for example, will get videos posted by content creators who are medical professionals, according to promotional videos about the service.
Apart from burnishing Douyin’s credentials in the short video-sharing app market, the sharpened focus on its search capabilities could help expand the platform’s advertising revenue.
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