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.
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