TikTok is shutting down its Instagram competitor, TikTok Notes, on Could 8. The photo-sharing app launched in testing in Canada, Australia, and Vietnam final yr.
The corporate is notifying TikTok Notes customers of its resolution to retire the app and is directing them to ByteDance-owned Lemon8, which isn’t shocking provided that the apps are fairly comparable and provide the identical form of performance.
“We’re excited to carry the suggestions from TikTok Notes to Lemon8 as we proceed constructing a devoted house for our neighborhood to share and expertise photograph content material, designed to enrich and improve the TikTok expertise,” a TikTok spokesperson stated in a press release to TechCrunch.
Whereas TikTok didn’t present a selected cause for shutting down the app, it’s possible that the corporate didn’t see a lot adoption for TikTok Notes and is deciding to as a substitute push Lemon8, which had round 12.5 million global monthly active users as of December 2024.
In a notice to TikTok Notes users, TikTok says the choice to close down the app “was not made frivolously.” The discover encourages customers to obtain and save their TikTok Notes knowledge and “proceed sharing your creativity on Lemon8.” TikTok says that “Lemon8 is a life-style app that provides the same expertise to TikTok Notes” however with “much more options.”
Lemon8 launched in Japan in 2020 and later expanded to markets throughout the U.S. and Southeast Asia. The app is much like Instagram and Pinterest, because it lets customers share slideshows, photograph collections and browse content material by means of “Following” and “For You” feeds. Lemon8 gives customers entry to artistic instruments, filters, results, stickers, textual content templates, and extra.
Whereas TikTok is pushing Lemon8 as an alternative choice to TikTok Notes, ByteDance has additionally tried to place the app as an alternative choice to TikTok itself within the face of a possible U.S. ban.
Final November, the corporate made it potential for customers to directly access Lemon8 with their TikTok accounts and rolled out the power for customers to cross-share photograph content material between the apps. The transfer was seen as a approach for ByteDance to maneuver creators onto the brand new platform with out having to get them to enroll in it individually in case TikTok had been to go away.
Quick ahead to right this moment, and TikTok continues to advertise Lemon8 in its app because it faces a brand new ban deadline of April 5.