Douyin's intelligent cloud photo album APP Time Album recently announced that it will officially stop operating on November 15 this year. This app, which was launched in 2015, became famous for launching the same Internet celebrity filter from the movie "Your Name", and was reluctantly announced after 8 years of operation.
The reporter found that the concept of "cloud photo album" once sprang up, attracting Internet giants to compete for layout. However, after several years of exploration, many "cloud album" applications are difficult to open the closed loop of business models, and the end result is to close or merge into other applications.
Once relied on the Internet celebrity filter to get out of the circleTime Album recently issued an announcement that Time Album will officially stop operating from 00:00:00 on November 15, 2023. At that time, all functions will be discontinued and all APP download portals will be closed.
It is understood that on the date of the announcement, Time Album turns off backup, sharing, tasks and membership functions. Before 23:59:59 on November 14, 2023, users can browse and download backed-up photos and videos normally, but can no longer back up and share new photos and videos.
The Time Album APP was first released in October 2015 by Shanghai Time Unlimited Technology Co., Ltd. According to Huawei's AppGallery, the app is an intelligent cloud album app owned by Douyin, which uses the same cloud computing architecture as Toutiao and Douyin, with powerful functions and stable services. Since its release, Time Album has received 73.45 million installs.
Time album ushered in a "boom" out of the circle a year after its release. In December 2016, the movie "Your Name" was released in China. Before and after the release of the movie, the same filter of Shinkai Makoto Animation launched by "Your Name" flooded Weibo.
In August 2017, Time Album responded to users' concerns about whether it would be closed, presenting three "security magic weapons" of storage security, network layer security, and privacy and confidentiality.
Flush iFinD shows that Shanghai Time Infinity Technology Co., Ltd., the developer of Time Album, was established in March 2016 with a registered capital of 10 million yuan, and the legal representative is Wei Xionghan . The business scope includes: the second type of value-added telecommunications services; Radio and television program production and operation; performance agent; import and export of goods; technology import and export; network culture management; Wait a minute.
The equity penetration chart shows that the company is indirectly wholly owned by Douyin Co., Ltd., and the actual controller is Li Ying.
According to the analysis of the flush iFinD big data, the company's total assets in 2022 will be tens of millions.
According to the Aiqicha APP, the trademark "Time Album" has been registered many times, and the applicants are all Beijing Douyin Information Service Co., Ltd., and the international classification involves scientific instruments, office supplies, education and entertainment, advertising sales, etc.
Album apps have closed down one after anotherWith the popularity of smartphones and the significant improvement of pixels, too many photos and insufficient memory have become a generation of pain points in the mobile Internet era. In this context, the concept of "cloud album" has sprung up, attracting Internet giants to compete for layout.
However, after several years of exploration, these "cloud album" apps often leave a chicken feather, and some applications have been incorporated into higher-level network disks.
The reporter's inquiry found that in addition to Douyin's Time Album, photo album applications that were once popular such as Youku Cloud Album, Quick Image Album, NetEase Album, etc. have been closed. Poor profitability, business adjustments, and unclear business models are the main reasons why it is difficult for photo album apps to maintain their operations.
Youku Cloud Album announced in January 2022 that due to business adjustments, Youku Cloud Album will stop operating, and it is recommended to transfer the files in the album to Alibaba Cloud Disk with one click to continue to enjoy cloud storage services on Alibaba Cloud Disk.
QuickPic was once a model of minimalist APP, which has multiple functions such as image browsing, sorting, and uploading to the cloud with a very small memory, and has been installed in the application store tens of millions of times.
However, after being acquired by a giant, the Kuaitu APP gradually became bloated, and advertisements flooded the page. After several twists and turns, the app was removed from the shelves.
(Securities Times)