TikTok, in its attempt to provide a space for more authentic posts, created a copy of BeReal.
TikTok today launched a new feature that’s essentially just a copy of BeReal , the popular French social app that’s steadily gaining popularity. BeReal invites users to take a front- and back-camera photo at a random time each day , and it’s designed to capture a more authentic picture of what your friends are up to throughout the day (but, of course, you can just wait to post until you’re doing something interesting). Snapchat and Instagram have already launched front- and back-camera features, and Instagram is rumored to be working on its own, ephemeral time-based feature. But TikTok beat its competitors by being the first app to simply implement BeReal ’s cut-and-paste to its platform.
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“ TikTok Now invites you and your friends to capture what you’re doing right now using your device’s front and back cameras,” the company’s blog says. “You’ll receive a daily prompt to capture a 10-second video or still photo to easily share what you’re doing.”
Every day, when BeReal goes off, users receive a push notification telling them that “it’s time to BeReal,” with alert emojis. TikTok’s notification looks the same – users are notified with a lightning bolt emoji that it’s “Time to Now,” which admittedly doesn’t resemble BeReal.
The feature may be available to users in the US. In the mockup images, it looks like “Now” has been squeezed into the space in the bottom navigation bar, next to the post button. For our purposes at least, we don’t see the feature yet. TikTok has added it to other regions, TikTok Now may work as a standalone app.
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BeReal has its own privacy concerns – if you ’re not careful to turn off your location, you could accidentally be sharing exactly where you live, down to the street name, with all your friends. Sure, BeReal is intended for use within your main social circle, but we’re talking about the internet, where there’s a public feed! In the mockup images shared, location doesn’t appear to be part of TikTok Now’s interface.
So, at launch, TikTok Now has some built-in privacy features. Like TikTok itself, if someone under 16 signs up for a standalone TikTok Now app, their account will be set to private by default. Additionally, users must be 18 to share BeReal posts on TikTok Now in the Explore feed. For users 13 to 15, only their friends — people they follow and who follow them — will be able to comment on their posts. Even for users 18+, the default setting will only allow friends to see their posts, although they can change their settings to share them with the world if they wish.
It always seems “cheap” when all the social media apps copy each other. How many apps now have a TikTok clone? But BeReal isn’t owned by a huge tech giant like Instagram or YouTube — according to Crunchbase, the company has fewer than 50 employees.
Source: techcrunch.com
