They’re spending mind-blowing amounts. They’re reaching mind-blowing scale. And they have the mind-blowing audacity to go to battle right in incumbent rivals’ backyards. After TikTok, nothing will ever be the same for social media and mobile content platforms. Just like Netflix blitzkrieged its way to domination of the living room, TikTok is employing similarly overwhelming strategies to domination of the smartphone. Whether TikTok eventually displaces Instagram, and whether profesional content platforms like Quibi can make a dent in mobile screen time, is yet to be seen. But what is obvious so far is that TikTok parent company Bytedance is taking a Netflix-like all-or-nothing approach to mobile eyeballs and making headway. The scale is enormous: TikTok has about 104 million American downloads to date, and nearly 1.2 billion world-wide. Here’s how TikTok’s doing it: TikTok will literally pay you to help it growTikTok has recently rolled out a feature, complete with push notifications to users, called TikTok Rewards. Two screenshots of the feature can be seen here. It’s intended to help current users recruit new users.
Share your TikTok invitation code, people sign up, you get points that go towards Uber, Target, Dunkin’ Donuts, AMC, Walmart and more. Just one sign TikTok is as extremely aggressive about growth as Netflix. Eye-popping investments TikTok spent $1 billion in advertising lat year, according to the Wall Street Journal. While it’s obviously a different type of investment and one that’s on a different order of magnitude, it’s an eye-popping sum that reminded me of the massive figures analysts expect Netflix to spend on original content ($15 billion this year). Audaciously battling incumbent rivals on their own turfSnapchat’s biggest advertiser last year? TikTok, according to the Journal. “TikTok has also flooded Facebook Inc. and Instagram with ads, rattling the social-media giants by targeting their audiences on their own turf.”Empty calories fed via algorithm Like Netflix, TikTok is unconcerned with the quality of content as long as you keep watching.
From the same Journal piece: “Compared with social media such as Instagram and Twitter, which can create stress with social pressure or news, TikTok strives to be like candy.”What really matters to Netflix is you spending time, that’s why the platform is geared toward algorithmically-spoon fed content of questionable quality and not toward any artistic metrics. TikTok tapped into the same hypnotic loop. I wrote in April of this year “One key difference between TikTok and past social media apps like Instagram is that instead of relying on your social graph - your friends - TikTok relies on its algorithm to guide users through its weird world of crap. You hop through hashtags rather than your feed, which makes it much easier to get lost on TikTok in a good way. It's much more like TV, if instead of the channel guide TV was organized by something close to the Discover page on Instagram.”
Will Love Island be the trashy reality version of The Office - a British phenomenon turned hit American adaptation? CBS is trying to pull it off. I've never heard of it. (WSJ)
The guest list for Sun Valley is predictably nuts. (Variety)
Speaking of Sun Valley, Apple bought promoted tweets tied to the search term on Twitter for Apple TV. An ad just for the bigwigs and the people who follow the bigwigs. Suggests Apple services are getting bigger marketing investment if terrible creative. (Screenshot)
This description of Zuckerberg being "incredulous" that he is seen as a "former innovator" and not a current innovator is priceless. (Bloomberg)
Here is every series in the pipeline at Quibi. (THR)
This didn't go as planned. Everyone loves the communist Roshe Run that Donald Jr. tweeted as a response to the Nike Betsy Ross flag controversy. (Twitter)
Twenty five years ago, the beloved New York Observer put out this hilarious and prescient retrospective of Quentin Tarantino's career from the year 2049. (Twitter)
Taylor Lorenz of The Atlantic is one of the best writers working today. Her latest, on YouTubers who are relatable to teens rather than hyper-perfect, is full of new info for me. (The Atlantic)
Feeling old: Disney is now starting to remake movies that I was too old for the first time they came out. (Variety)
Further reading: — Whatever happened to the rock star country mansion?
A very big house — preferably Jacobean — was once de rigueur. But today’s musicians have different aspirations
Ben Barenholtz, Midnight-Movie Innovator, Is Dead at 83
Ben Barenholtz, who began the midnight-movie phenomenon at his Manhattan theater in the 1970s and nurtured the movie careers of David Lynch and the Coen brothers, died on June 27 at a hospital in Prague
The Coast of Utopia
From the looks of Instagram, Courtney Adamo and the surfing mamas of Byron Bay are living the dream. Can it be real?
Disney Won. Now What?
Between its army of beloved franchises and purchase of 20th Century Fox, Disney controls more of the movie business than any studio in generations. What will Hollywood look like under Mickey Mouse’s shadow?
Sunday Night Is the New Monday Morning, and Workers Are Miserable
Some employers are banning weekend and late-night emails to prevent employee burnout
Dave Navarro Recalls Leaving Fiona Apple a Love Note in Blood
An exclusive excerpt from Drew Fortune's exciting new book, No Encore!