Where Did Byte Go?
The highly anticipated Vine reboot seems to have fallen off. What gives?
On January 24th of this year, content creators and content consumers alike rejoiced at the official launch of the long-awaited Vine reboot, Byte, which is the brainchild of Vine co-founder, Dom Hofmann. Released on the seventh anniversary of its predecessor, it was met with immediate success, receiving close to 800,000 downloads over its first weekend and a total of 1.3 million in its first week. Since this initial explosion, it has seen a steady decrease in popularity over the last two months. This poses a fairly simple question:
Why?
The Background: Vine, Tik Tok, and Byte
As many know, Byte’s concept isn’t exactly revolutionary. Since Vine’s genesis in 2013, the internet has been steeped in bite-size, loopable meme content. When it was introduced, the six-second format offered a new and easily consumable creative challenge and quickly took off. At the peak of its popularity, Vine had over 200 million users, but ultimately failed to generate a sustainable model. Much to the dismay of fans, Twitter shut down Vine in January of 2017.
However, the internet is a fickle mistress with a short attention span (which was part of why Vine was so popular in the first place). Soon after Vine was gone, TikTok moved in to fill the void.
In its place, TikTok offered a host of new and interesting features in addition to the familiar format. When it began its rise in popularity, TikTok offered fifteen-second videos, which eventually became sixty. Part of its appeal is the catalog of music and sounds that content creators can use as backing for their videos, as well as the ability to reuse sounds from other creators. In addition to this, the ability to put text, filters, and lenses on videos is something Vine didn’t offer.
Popularity: By the Numbers
Within its first week, Byte put up download numbers that are comparable with both Vine and TikTok. In fact, it practically doubled Vine’s first week numbers.
It’s important to note, though, that Vine entered what was essentially an empty market for this niche, and they stumbled on it somewhat accidentally. Since that time, the internet has evolved significantly, and Byte’s attachment to Vine generated most of its initial popularity.
With that in mind, TikTok might be a more comparable app.
The First Few Months: TikTok vs. Byte
In a similar sense, TikTok came on the scene with a built-in fan base and a fresh take on the shareable video. TikTok in its current form, which is owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance, was the result of a merger between Musical.ly and Douyin, which were incredibly popular in the U.S. and China, respectively.
In September of 2017, ByteDance began marketing Douyin — which had previously only been available in China — in international markets under the name of TikTok. It quickly gained traction in surrounding countries, rising to the top of the charts in Thailand and Japan. Soon after this, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly and the two apps were merged as one in August of 2018. Since then, TikTok has dominated the meme landscape.
By November, TikTok had risen to the second most downloaded app of the month. By the time Byte was released, it had achieved 1.65 billion downloads.
Compare this meteoric rise in popularity to Byte’s first three months on the market:
After topping all apps in its first few days, Byte has fallen down the charts, ranking #1151 as of April 17th, according to Sensor Tower’s data analytics.
Why, in a similar time span, did TikTok nearly top all apps while Byte fell to the wayside?
The Answer
To be fair, TikTok’s and Byte’s launches can’t be a hard and fast comparison. TikTok had a long time to build its reputation around the world before it hit the U.S. market, and its merger with an already popular app gave it a significant advantage over Byte. Still, Byte brought its own familiarity and hype.
What’s going on? And what can Byte do about it?
I would argue three main factors made up the difference, but luckily for Byte, there’s still a lot of hope for the fledgling app.
#1: Competition
Something that Vine and TikTok both had in common upon their respective launches is a relative lack of competition. That isn’t to say there was zero competition — Vine faced off against Snapchat and Instagram (a battle they ultimately lost), and TikTok saw competition from Facebook’s Lasso — but it’s evident that neither of them had to compete against a behemoth like what TikTok has become. If Byte is going to succeed, it’s going to have to carve out a niche because, let’s face it: TikTok isn’t going anywhere soon.
#2: Creativity
Put simply, Byte looked to ride the wave of Vine’s previous success with very few tweaks to the format. While the interface is noticeably sleeker and the color palettes eye-catching, the app has little to offer in way of creative difference from Vine. In fairness, in its most recent update it added some exciting features, such as an eight-second video limit and gif floaties. This is the sort of creativity that Byte is going to have to continue to display if it wants the incredibly short-form video to return to its former glories.
#3: Monetization
This is the real crux of the issue. This is where Byte has to learn from the mistakes of its predecessor. Initially, Byte made clear its intentions to pay creators, but this promise wasn’t enough to keep people downloading and likely won’t until that money is seen. Nowadays, apps live and die by the almighty dollar, and Byte will be no exception. However, this is where Byte has potential to swoop in and steal some of TikTok’s creators, who have very little earning potential. Keep an eye on this, because Byte is well on its way to regaining some of its old traction; the app recently announced more specifics for its Partner Program, stating that this month they plan on issuing payouts of $250,000 to top content creators. Reportedly, they will be putting all of their ad revenue into the Program, which will be renewed every 120 days. This type of money will likely draw creators to Byte, so look for an upward trend in downloads once this is implemented.
So, while Byte may have gotten off to a slow start, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the app. Despite facing steep competition, if it can continue to innovate and pay creators, it has the potential to be a force to be reckoned with. Right now, Byte is flying under the radar, primed for success. Will it live up to that potential? Only time will tell.
