TikTok Terminates TikTok Now Feature
As per The Verge, TikTok has informed its users that it will be discontinuing TikTok Now, which was essentially a copy of the popular social media platform BeReal from last year. Several users have shared screenshots indicating that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is revamping the TikTok experience and discontinuing TikTok Now.
BeReal was Apple’s iPhone app of 2022, but the buzz around the social media app has died down recently. The app took an interesting approach compared to the competition and sent notifications at a different time each day, prompting you to quickly share photos taken with your device’s front and rear cameras at the same time. The idea was to create more spontaneous content while keeping the experience centered around friends.
TikTok Now had an almost identical approach, which also required users to take front and back photos at the same time. However, it added the ability to take 10-second TikTok-like videos instead of photos. When it launched, the company said it aimed to create “authentic and spontaneous connections on TikTok.”
The feature was part of the main app in the US, but is also available as a standalone TikTok Now app in other regions. A message sent to TikTok users in the US indicated that the feature was discontinued in the main app, but there is no word on a standalone TikTok Now app.
Soon after its release, BeReal was successful enough to inspire dual-camera features from Instagram (Candid Stories), SnapChat, and more. However, since then, the number of users has decreased, according to a report published by the New York Times in April. However, BeReal disputed the analytics report behind the story, saying it still had 20 million daily active users.
