Sean Joseph
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok and the Chinese version of the app called Douyin, is preparing to launch a new social media application. The app is called Kesong or croissant in Chinese.
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Kesong will introduce a new platform to young audiences. The new platform is designed for users to share their lifestyle and hobbies with other users. The slogan for the new app, according to the Chinese tech news site 36kr report, is “new lifestyles for young people.”
The site also compared the new ByteDance app to a similar app. Xiaohongshu, which is a popular Instagram-like social media platform with more than 200 million active monthly users.
Xiaohongshu was founded in 2013 and is known as the Little Red Book in English-speaking circles. The app is very popular among China’s Generation-Z and will serve as stiff competition for Kesong.
They rolled out Xincao in 2018 and Xintu in 2019
The new social media app is ByteDance’s latest effort to successfully launch an Instagram-like app. They’ve tried launching similar apps on two other occasions and weren’t able to do so.
Back in 2018 ByteDance rolled out Xincao. The following year, 2019, they made another attempt with an app called Xintu. Both apps failed to catch on with users and were eventually discontinued.
According to Beijing Microlive Vision Technology Co., Ltd., the developer of the Douyin app registered a software copyright earlier this year. The Chinese commercial inquiry platform revealed that the new registered software copyright is called Kesong Android Software.
There is also a subdomain of the Douyin website that has been setup. The new subdomain, kesong.douyin.com, is not yet functional.
The news of the new ByteDance app comes as the company is receiving some heat
The news of the new ByteDance app comes as the company is receiving some heat in the United States. Leaked audio has raised concerns about TikTok’s data privacy again.
TikTok has long claimed that private information gathered about US users was stored in the United States. As a result that information was inaccessible by ByteDance employees in China.
The leaked audio, from over 80 internal TikTok meetings, revealed that to not be the case. The employees in China could in fact access the private data of US users.
