The news: China’s ByteDance is extending its line of apps with Kesong, a social network app for shopping and lifestyle recommendations. Users of the app, which was launched in the Chinese market earlier this month, share images, videos, fashion advice, and shopping experiences.
Zoom out: ByteDance is making the move in an effort to compete with Tencent, the Chinese tech giant that controls the WeChat super app.
Why it matters: By launching an entirely new app rather than embed added functionality into TikTok and Douyin, ByteDance is deviating from Tencent’s strategy of encapsulating all sorts of features into WeChat. Douyin actually attempted in-app recommendations last year; lessons learned from that experiment might have suggested to ByteDance that such a feature would work better as a standalone app.
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