Reddit shutting Dubsmash app but still wants videos like TikTok

Reddit is retiring Dubsmash, the short-form video startup it acquired last year, but plans to make video features more central to its own app as it attempts to build more camera functions directly into the service. On Tuesday, Reddit announced that Dubsmash would expire in February as a standalone app, leaving users time to download old videos. When Reddit bought Dubsmash, it announced it would integrate the apps, but it was unclear whether Dubsmash would live on its own, as well. “Since joining, the Dubsmash team has been working to integrate their innovative video creation tools into Reddit,” Reddit’s product and design team wrote in a blog post on Tuesday, “with a goal of empowering Reddit’s own creators to express themselves in original ways that are authentic to our communities.” Reddit bought Dubsmash in late 2020 at a time when social media apps were developing strategies to compete with the increasingly popular TikTok and its short video aesthetic. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese-based ByteDance, has more than 1 billion monthly users and has soared in popularity in the U.S. Facebook—now called Meta—Google, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest have all tried to launch video-sharing tools that mimic some of TikTok’s functionality. Dubsmash was an independent startup that was trying to find its place among creators, and it was known for serving a diverse audience. At the time of the acquisition, Reddit touted that Dubsmash reached 25% of Black teenagers in the U.S., and 70% of the user base was female. Subscribe to Ad Age now for the latest industry news and analysis. Reddit is a site based on user-run communities, called subreddits, dedicated to specialized interests like TV shows, finance, news, music and memes. Reddit has about 52 million daily users, according to the company’s latest official stats. Reddit has been encouraging more video consumption by building products like Reddit Public Access Network, a livestream video hub. “Reddit is where passionate communities come together for timely, interactive, and authentic exchanges about topics that matter to them, and video is increasingly core to how people want to connect,” the company shared Tuesday. Reddit understands the power of short video in advertising, too, even on TV. This year, Reddit ran a 5-second regional Super Bowl commercial. The spot was just a flash, but it drew a lot of attention to Reddit’s “Wall Street Bets” stock-picking subreddit, which had just become famous for promoting investments into GameStop. But video is a tough format to crack for many social media companies. In August, Twitter shut down Fleets, its short-form, video-sharing experiment. Twitter previously acquired and then canned Vine, the app that popularized six-second video creation. Still, there are success stories. Facebook bought Instagram and kept that as a vibrant photo and video app, and Google bought YouTube, which is the most popular online video site with 2 billion viewers. Reddit says it is making gains in video and will start to include more video-creation components. In its announcement, Reddit reported that video hours watched on its site increased 70% from January to November, but did not share how many overall hours have been watched. On Tuesday, Reddit also revealed new features in its camera, including new filters and stickers, which are creative elements that people stamp on their videos. Reddit pointed former “Dubsmashers” to continue to connect at a subreddit called r/dubsmash, but that community does not appear very active, with only 26 subscribers. But Reddit also highlighted other subreddits like r/dance and r/nextf*ckinglevel, which are filling up with videos, pointing the way to how Reddit communities could become more visual in the future.

Reddit shutting Dubsmash app but still wants videos like TikTok

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