Editor’s Guide: Recently, Tik Tok launched the music streaming platform of "Soda Music". This paper describes five specific reasons why Tik Tok officially launched the music streaming media platform and the future development space of "soda music". Finally, it is concluded that soda music is not only a product with strategic significance, but also can re-enhance the musical gene of Tik Tok’s overall product and reshape the musical image of Tik Tok. Let’s take a look.
In fact, as early as 2019, it was reported that ByteDance was testing music products, and in 2020, it launched Resso in India and Indonesia (followed by covering the Brazilian market), and achieved a lot of results, winning the honor of the best application in the Google Play Store in Indonesia. ByteDance has a layout of copyright, announcement and distribution in the music field at home and abroad, and the product positioning of Tik Tok’s online place is: "Music creative short video social software",music DNA early in Tik Tok’s genes.
And why did Tik Tok choose this year to officially launch its own music streaming platform? Mainly from 5 points:
1. The growth of users in Tik Tok has peaked, and a new growth engine is urgently needed to drive the business growth in Tik Tok; In the past, the way of expanding the scope of content has completed the multi-layered and multi-level short video content ecology in Tik Tok; And expand the scope of business, increase e-commerce services, and eat cakes that sell goods live; Now, I am trying to deepen the music field, increase the depth of music business, keep the music flow in Tik Tok business, and drive the growth of Tik Tok business.
2. Last year (2021), Xiami Music was removed from the shelves, and a new pattern of the music market was formed. Tencent and Netease were the two giants in the domestic music market. At this time, QQ Music and Netease Cloud Music were both launched with short videos, live broadcasts and other functions, which eroded the original market of short music videos and music networks in Tik Tok. If Tik Tok could no longer meet the music needs of users, but searched the Tik Tok Divine Comedy on two other music platforms, resulting in an outflow of traffic, Tik Tok’s growth would not be formed.
3. The anti-monopoly policy of Internet and music has brought new possibilities to the music market, which was originally dominated by "content copyright". The competition of music platforms can no longer form a moat from copyright monopoly, and the market after copyright opening is full of infinite possibilities.
4. Successful cases inside and outside the company increase ByteDance’s confidence in betting on music streaming media; The success of Resso owned by Byte is the same as Youtube Music’s successful case of expanding from video to music streaming platform.
5. Tik Tok has launched music streaming media (My Music) within the product, and can collect music, create song lists and listen to music, which can be used as the relevant data of MVP products to further verify the success probability of Tik Tok’s own music platform. At present, soda music should be only after the MVP data reaches the standard, and ByteDance will further invest resources in research and development.
YouTube Music is an extension of YouTube video platform, and it has replaced Google Play Music, the original product of Google layout music market, and has become one of the pre-installed apps for overseas Android mobile phones.
The soda music extended from Tik Tok is similar to Youtube Music, and both are products extended from the video platform. Let’s summarize and compare the information of the two, as follows:
Although both of them are video platforms, music and both of them have deep DNA origins. The music market is the action of pushing the boat with running water, and it is also the best direction to go out. Let’s take a look at the achievements of Youtube Music.
At present, there are 500 million music paying users in the world, of which Spotify is still the leader with 165 million, followed by Apple Music with 77.9 million, Amazon Music with 63.3 million and YouTube Music with 39 million.
Although Apple Music was launched in 2015 in the same year, and the number of paying users was more than twice that of Youtube Music, Applie Music inherited the foundation of Apple iTunes and the advantages of iPhone users. If we only look at the performance of Youtube Music in Taiwan Province market, It entered the Taiwan Province market four years later than Apple Music (in 2019), but it has surpassed Apple Music in popularity and usage rate in Taiwan Province market, ranking second in Taiwan Province market. Apart from the cognitive differences and usage habits of users in the market, it is also related to the fact that the Chinese music market prefers products like MV.
Of course, Youtube Music can achieve such a great success in the Taiwanese music market in a short period of time, which is not only related to the leading position of Youtube in the Taiwan Province market, but also related to the linkage pricing and sales of Youtube and Youtube Music.
However, the sales linkage between Tik Tok and soda music, such as Youtube and Youtube Music, cannot be formed, because Tik Tok is not a commercial model such as paying members, and soda music currently has only the business model of paying members. In the future, the commercial exploration of soda music cannot directly borrow Youtube model, nor can it directly generate commercial linkage with Tik Tok. Whether it can directly profit from soda music still has great obstacles and exploration space …
ByteDance has made remarkable achievements in exploring the music streaming platform with Resso. Among the three markets opened up, it won the second place in Indonesia and Brazil and the fourth place in India, beating the music products of other global Internet giants.
From the screenshots and copywriting of soda music and Resso’s App Store promotion, there is a high similarity between them. Besides, soda music also directly opened Tik Tok’s user account to share user information and data, which saved the process of user data accumulation during the cold start, and inherited Resso’s verified interaction and visual effects. I believe that there will be no major flaws or problems in product design and algorithm, and there is a huge fantasy space for development potential.
From the market in 2019, it has been reported that ByteDance will launch music products, and Byte took the lead in launching Resso in India, Indonesia and Brazil, and achieved great results; And "My Music" was launched in Tik Tok products, which was originally only used to collect BGM music and promote users to create short videos, and further developed into a complete music streaming media product, becoming a "prequel" of soda music. (MVP version)
Under the macro-environment anti-monopoly policy, the entry threshold of music copyright in the past has been lowered for soda music. With Youtube Music as a successful lesson, plus the capital strength of Byte itself and the blessing of Tik Tok’s huge user system, soda music has an excellent starting height.
Tik Tok is in urgent need of music as a new business growth engine, and will certainly be willing to invest a lot of resources in soda music; And Tik Tok’s internal "My Music"+user data sharing has completed the preliminary data verification process for soda music, and saved all kinds of investment accumulated by users in the early stage. I believe that after the soda music is officially launched in the future, it will have a great chance to occupy a place in domestic music, and even have the opportunity to challenge the Jianghu status of QQ music and Netease cloud music …
Soda music is not only a product with strategic significance, but also has a strong tactical defense function, which re-promotes the music gene of Tik Tok’s overall product and reshapes the music image of Tik Tok. It keeps the traffic in Tik Tok’s ecology, no longer flows to outsiders, and also reduces the market share of short music videos and live music broadcasts in Tik Tok eroded by other music platforms. Even if soda music fails to achieve the goal of profit, it is definitely a good deal for Tik Tok …
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