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TikTok rivals Twitter with new text format: What to know
Perfect timing? TikTok’s text-based feature comes as social media users are shopping around for an alternative to Twitter... oops, X.
TikTok announced on Monday, 24 July, users can now post written content on the video-sharing app, making it the latest social media platform to challenge Twitter. Photo: Patrick T Fallon/AFP
TikTok announced its debut into the text-based post social media realm on Monday, 24 July. The popular video-sharing platform is the latest tech giant to rival Twitter, now rebranded as X or what its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, calls the “everything app”.
ALSO READ: X marks the spot of Musk mastery
Elon Musk rebrands Twitter to X
Musk tweeted on Sunday that his social media platform will drop the use of the word “tweets” to simply the letter “X”. On Monday, Musk officially replaced Twitter’s iconic blue bird logo with an “X”.
According to Forbes, Twitter will be operated using the domain X.com, which Musk purchased from PayPal in 2017.
ALSO READ: Bye bye, blue bird: Twitter renamed X, ditches signature logo
‘Space to shine’: TikTok text-based posts in a nutshell
Like Threads, TikTok benefits from its size, with around 1.4 billion monthly active users, according to Business of Apps.
The Chinese-owned company said in a release the change is designed to give “the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions and videos a dedicated space to shine”.
- The app’s text-based posts look similar to Instagram stories in that they can be shared with music or a sound, stickers and a location and they can still be duetted and reposted like videos or photos shared on the app.
- Users make text posts in the same way they create videos or photos, and the post appears as text – with similar font options to Instagram stories – over a coloured background.
The launch of TikTok’s new feature comes just weeks after Facebook’s Meta released Threads, an Instagram offshoot which has been considered by many to pose the biggest threat to Twitter.
ALSO READ: #FoodTikTok ignites South Africa’s passion for cooking
Twitter turmoil: Perfect timing for TikTok text-based posts?
To the ire and frustration of many Twitter users, Musk has introduced a plethora of changes since he took ownership of the platform in October 2022.
The changes range from a “temporary” limit to the number of posts Twitter users can see on a daily basis to a verified account model that makes some features of the site only available to users who pay.
Threads, which launched earlier this month, is integrated with Instagram and became the fastest-growing online platform in history when more than 100 million users joined in less than five days.
ALSO READ: Twitter blues: Musk tweets platform lost half of its advertising revenue
However, Forbes reports that Threads saw a decline of nearly 70% in the number of daily active users since its peak on 7 July.
NOW READ: Elon Musk threatens to sue Meta as Twitter rival Threads takes off
