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ByteDance’s Lemon8 positive factors traction amid TikTok ban danger as creators push the app

ByteDance’s Lemon8 positive factors traction amid TikTok ban danger as creators push the app
January 8, 2025



Listening to so much about Lemon8 in recent times? You’re no longer the one one. Amid a looming U.S. ban on TikTok, content material creators were pushing the platform’s sister app. Lemon8 resembles an amalgamation of the varieties of short-form movies discovered on TikTok and the picture-perfect aesthetic of Instagram and Pinterest. Like its in style relation, Lemon8 is owned by way of China-based ByteDance, whose choice of the world over to be had apps additionally comprises the video enhancing app CapCut and the picture and artwork enhancing app Hypic. As well as, the corporate operates Douyin, the Chinese language sibling of TikTok that follows Beijing’s strict censorship laws. Lemon8 introduced within the U.S. in 2023, a couple of years after it first popped up in Asian markets. Although it garnered some media and consumer hobby in its early days, the app hasn’t taken off up to TikTok, which has greater than 170 million U.S. customers.

However extra other folks have downloaded the app prior to now month, making it one of the most top-ranking loose apps on Apple’s app retailer. Lemon8’s reputation may probably jump additional relying at the consequence of a U.S. Superb Court docket listening to Friday over a legislation requiring TikTok to wreck ties with ByteDance or face a U.S. ban. TikTok says it plans to close down the platform within the U.S. by way of Jan. 19 if the federal government prevails, because it did in a decrease court docket.

What are creators announcing about Lemon8?Influencers up to now partnered with Lemon8 to advertise the lesser-known app on TikTok. In contemporary weeks, lots of them have hailed Lemon8 because the position to move if TikTok is banned below federal legislation. Some have additionally been recommending it thru paid subsidized posts tagged #lemon8partner, appearing a contemporary company push to generate extra customers. However there’s a hitch. The legislation, which might wipe out TikTok’s U.S. operation if it’s no longer bought to an authorized purchaser, states the divest-or-ban requirement applies in most cases to apps which can be owned or operated by way of ByteDance, TikTok or any in their subsidiaries. That suggests despite the fact that Lemon8 and CapCut aren’t explicitly named within the statute, their futures within the U.S. are also in jeopardy.

Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at marketplace analysis corporate Emarketer, famous that the creators recommending Lemon8 is probably not acutely aware of the imaginable implications for the opposite ByteDance apps for the reason that legislation does no longer determine them. The new Lemon8 commercials on TikTok additionally could also be an indication that ByteDance is “hoping or having a bet” Lemon8 slips during the cracks as lawmakers and regulators focal point their consideration on TikTok, Enberg stated. Representatives for the corporations didn’t right away reply to a request for remark.

Lemon8 downloadsTo spice up Lemon8’s consumer base, TikTok introduced in November that creators would be capable to get right of entry to a Lemon8 account with the similar account they use on TikTok, a function the corporate says will beef up their talent to cross-post content material. TikTok stated the mixing was once designed to amplify creators “achieve and engagement attainable.”Like TikTok, Lemon8’s primary feed options each a “following” phase that we could customers take a look at content material from the creators they observe and a “For You” phase that recommends different posts. The more moderen platform additionally types posts into other classes, like relationships, wellness and skin care. ByteDance has no longer disclosed the selection of international or U.S. customers on Lemon8, which is assumed to be miniscule in comparison to its trend-setting sister app. Information from the analysis company SimilarWeb signifies Lemon8 has a little bit over 1 million day by day lively customers. Marketplace intelligence corporate Sensor Tower estimates the app noticed a vital leap in international downloads in December — a 150% build up — in comparison to a median 2% month-over-month decline ultimate 12 months. The U.S. accounted for 70% of the month’s downloads. The most important selection of U.S. downloads have been carried out on Dec. 19, in step with Sensor Tower. That was once the day after the Superb Court docket stated it could pay attention this week’s oral arguments over the constitutionality of the federal legislation that would ban TikTok. The legislation handed with bipartisan make stronger ultimate 12 months after lawmakers and Biden management officers expressed considerations that Chinese language government may drive ByteDance at hand over U.S. consumer information or sway public opinion in opposition to Beijing’s pursuits by way of manipulating the set of rules that populates customers’ feeds.President-elect Donald Trump requested the Superb Court docket on Dec. 27 to pause the prospective TikTok ban from going into impact till he’s inaugurated and his management can pursue a “political answer” to the problem.

OpenAI
Author: OpenAI

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