In the 2019 Lantern Festival, Douyin threw 100 million on its video social app "Duo Flash", with a simple and clear goal - to attract new users. But this scenery only lasted for a month, and a few months later, the "flying chat", which focuses on social interest, took over and carried the social banner of Douyin.
In the next four years, it was good to flash or fly, and there were several ups and downs. Until recently, Multiflash was updated again and returned to the public eye. On September 19, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that the official website of Duoshan positioned itself as "the official application of Duoshan Douyin chat".
In 2023, the multi-flash weakens the short video function, strengthens the instant social elements, and increases the message list and address book, making it more like a Douyin version of WeChat. Will Douyin, which is obsessed with social interaction, wait for the ending of "there must be an echo"?
Choice: Chat > short video
TikTok continues its attempts at socializing on Duo Flash. According to Tech Planet News, Douyin's social product Duoshan has ushered in a major version update again after nearly half a year, and its website is displayed as "Duoshan Douyin Chat Official Application".
It is reported that although the previous version of Multiflash was social positioning, it still featured short videos in large lengths. The new version of the short video attribute only remains in the chat box and the flashy "video moment", the social proportion of the entire product is larger, and there is an additional message list and address book.
Compared with the Douyin app, Duo Flash is like a "supporting" tool that removes its short video square and amplifies the message function. The navigation bar of the multi-flash app has five options, and the shooting function occupies the C position, and the two sides are "Chat", "Friends" and "Contacts" and "Me".
Among them, the "Friends" column shows short videos posted by friends, similar to the short video version of Moments. In addition to displaying TikTok friends, "Contacts" also supports recommending new friends, adding new friends, and linking mobile phone contacts.
The "Me" section is similar to the "Me" section of Douyin, as a display page for short video works, but without other social functions such as Douyin Mall, My Orders, and viewing history. It is worth mentioning that in the other functional section in the upper right corner, the "My Wallet" option is retained.
Duo Flash is more and more like WeChat. But when users can already meet social needs on Douyin, is the separated multi-flash "redundant"? In an interview with a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, Internet investor Zhuang Minghao mentioned that "from content community to social, it is essentially a walled city."
He explained that social networking is a chain of relationships between people, and community is roughly equivalent to content community, that is, some people produce content and most people consume content. In the context of the Chinese Internet, these are actually two very different business forms, but because of the blurred boundaries, both sides want to test each other's business scope.
"And Douyin has always been a company that has to do everything, hit the south wall and still does not look back, and it is impossible not to do social when the community business is already too strong to be strong." In Zhuang Minghao's view, "as long as it is flashed for one more day, Douyin's social obsession will exist for one day."
Is multi-flash enough to change the habits of TikTok users? Regarding this question and the positioning of Duo Flash, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily contacted Douyin, but did not get a reply.
To a certain extent, Douyin does social networking, and perhaps needs to be understood from a higher perspective. In recent years, Douyin has been doing e-commerce and takeaway, and all kinds of popularity have flourished, and social networking is only a slightly inferior part of it.
"The top domestic Internet companies are basically going in the direction of 'unification'." Zhuang Minghao said that the entire Internet industry has entered a zero-sum game, and even the short video business that has killed all parties in the past few years has shown signs of peaking. Companies can't lie flat, they need to do something new, it's just based on their existing business foundation, take one or two more steps forward, and try the track that others have verified.
According to the "China Online Audiovisual Development Research Report (2023)", in 2022, the number of short video users increased by only 8.3% year-on-year, but it has accounted for 94% of all Internet users.
Contradiction: independent or subordinate
Multiflash launched on January 15, 2019. Public reports mention that this is the first time that Douyin has launched an independent social product, and it is also regarded by the industry as a key node for Douyin to officially enter the social field.
A month later, during the Lantern Festival, Duoshan launched the "Lantern Festival Joy Party" and distributed 100 million yuan in red envelopes, which became its highlight moment. But as subsidies receded, multi-flash downloads began to fall off a cliff in early February.
Fortunately, Duoshan has not been completely abandoned, and several updates in the past few years have also become a microcosm of Douyin's "struggle" on the social track.
It is understood that the last major update of Doflash was in November 2022. At that time, Duoshan abandoned the original short video and text chat functions, based on the camera's main limited-time social gameplay, users can experience simultaneous shooting by front and rear cameras, and the system pushes photo notifications to users randomly and irregularly every day, and only participants can unlock friends' photos.
And the repeated revisions of Douyin may also reveal the infinite contradictions of Douyin's social attempts: is Duoflash to make an independent social product, or is it a "subset" of Douyin?
In Zhuang Minghao's view, Douyin may also be trapped in this contradiction, and the external embodiment of this internal contradiction is the revision of Duo Flash again and again.
Duoshan is a representative of TikTok's obsession with socializing, but it is not the only one. In addition to multi-flash, Douyin has also bet on "flying chat" that focuses on strangers' interest and socialization, as well as testing the water of meta-universe socialization, but in the end, most of them did not splash much.
For Douyin's obsession with social networking, Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that first of all, social networking is one of the infrastructure of the Internet, with extremely high user stickiness and frequency of use, which can bring continuous traffic and user stickiness to the platform. Secondly, social networking is also an important part of user needs, and Douyin can continuously improve user experience and loyalty through the exploration and innovation of social products.
"Finally, social networking is also one of the important ways for Douyin to achieve business monetization, and more business models can be explored through the development of social products, providing a broader space for the company's long-term development." Jiang Han said.
Zhuang Minghao mentioned that in the thinking of Internet companies, everyone generally agrees that the retention of social and the binding of relationship chains should naturally prevail over content-based binding.
"Douyin must also want to have its own WeChat, but the problem in front of it is that it is no longer possible to rebuild a WeChat, so it can only retreat to the second, based on the previous relationship that has been formed, looking for a more 'narrow' product to build this matter, so there is today's version of Doflash." Zhuang Minghao said.
Challenge: It will not be the "new WeChat" that beats WeChat
Every Internet company may want to have its own "WeChat". This story line can still be told from January 15, 2019. The excitement of that day was that the protagonist not only had Douyin's multi-flash, but also the "toilet MT" launched by Wang Xin, the founder of Kuaibo, and the upgraded version of bullet SMS "Chat Bao" launched by Luo Yonghao Kuairu Technology.
The outside world vividly described it as "Three British Battles Lü Bu". The reason is that although the three apps have their own characteristics, anonymity, short video, video + picture and other gameplay all aim at the disadvantages of WeChat.
Until today, social networking is also the "white moonlight" of Internet enterprises. Not long ago, Xiaohongshu just launched the "Find a Partner" function. Even Tencent itself is trying. Last month, there were also media reports that Tencent was developing a social app called "M8" internally, positioning a map-based virtual social product.
Jiang Han analyzed that Internet companies are obsessed with social networking, mainly because social networking is one of the infrastructure of the Internet, with extremely high user stickiness and frequency of use, which can bring continuous traffic and user stickiness to the platform. At the same time, social networking is also an important part of user needs, which can meet people's needs for interpersonal communication, information sharing and communication.
There are more and more latecomers, but WeChat is always a big mountain in the way. Jiang Han believes that WeChat, as a leader in the social field, its core advantage lies in its strong user base and extensive social relationship chain, which makes WeChat an indispensable social tool in people's daily life. Although other big manufacturers are constantly trying to challenge WeChat's status, WeChat still dominates the social field with its strong brand influence and user stickiness.
From the user's point of view, Zhuang Minghao put WeChat's "moat" on the cost of migration. He cited a "law" that is, the transfer cost of Internet product users = experience cost + migration cost.
Zhuang Minghao explained that in the early years, the experience cost of pure products was usually able to open the gap, but at this stage of product design development, it is almost impossible to make a better product than WeChat on the experience side. In this case, the increment of the cost of the product experience side cannot make up for the negative increment caused by the user migration cost.
"It will definitely not be the 'new WeChat' that defeats WeChat." Zhuang Minghao believes that the current Internet companies' attempts in social networking are still stuck in the idea of "using WeChat to fight WeChat", which is nothing more than using the enterprise market as a breakthrough, and it is far from easy to really apply in the C-end, "The real breakthrough point is the need to use a new product to meet the original scene, unfortunately, this new thing has not been found."
Beijing Business Daily reporter Yang Yuehan