Vine’s co-founder Dom Hofmann has unveiled Byte, a 6-second video app that’s now available on Android and iOS. Byte is everything Vine ever was, but ready to take on competitors and emerging giants such as TikTok. TikTok has eerily taken over social media and has pretty much given the jitters to even the likes of Twitter and Facebook.
In this context, Byte is not only ambitious but quite daring. Yet, the decision to launch Byte is not abrupt but has been in the making for quite some time now. In fact, Dom Hofmann had announced that he was working on Byte way back in 2017. It was in beta until recently and is now available for everyone to use.
What sets Byte apart from other competing platforms
What makes this application more ambitious and realistic is its business model. It has a proper business model to generate revenue from and is not likely to fizzle out like Vine once did. Byte has collaborated with an unnamed agency to pay content creators, thanks to a partner program. In addition, users can sign up using Google or Apple ID. This video-first application is a great boon to those who prefer the video format. As the preference for short video content is growing tremendously, Byte certainly has an advantage over other social media applications.
Yet, there are a few things that come to our mind about Byte:
- Will it be able to generate revenue from the video content as it expects?
- Will it be able to draw users from TikTok, which is already established?
- What makes this app different from TikTok, when this too is a video sharing platform?
- Will content creators be paid on the basis of the quality of content or on the basis of views and traffic?
- Will advertisements be allowed in order to generate revenue?
How Byte will survive the tide of competition is not clear
These and many other questions are still unanswered. However, it is quite clear that video sharing applications and platforms are very much in demand now. As more people seek out video content, the need for niche video platforms will grow too. However, it is not clear if Byte will be able to generate the kind of revenue and usage that it needs to survive and thrive.
