TikTok has been bragging about its musical potential for months and how the social network itself has made viral songs used for those known as trends They’ll hit the charts. Now, a new move by the Chinese firm suggests a future launch of a platform focused solely on music; a possible alternative to Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and other streaming services called TikTok Music.
As detailed Business Insider, ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok, has filed a trademark application in the United States for ‘TikTok Muisc’. In the application, the company describes the brand as “a variety of goods and services, including a mobile application that allows users to buy, play, share, download music, songs, albums, lyrics”, which makes a clear reference to a music service similar to Spotify. ByteDance, however, can also use the brand to launch a platform that allows “streaming live audio and video”, as detailed in the aforementioned medium.
In any case, Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney at the Law Firm, has highlighted Insider usually, a company the size of TikTok or ByteDance is only going to file trademark applications for items they are seriously considering.”, so it would not be strange to see an upcoming launch of a streaming music app developed by the Chinese company. In fact, it is not the first time that the launch of an alternative to Spotify has been rumored. In 2019 there was also speculation about it, although the company never officially announced anything.
TikTok is much more than a video app
While Meta continues to focus on copying TikTok for videos, the Chinese app, which has more than 1 billion users, is carving out a huge niche for itself in the music scene. To a large extent, thanks to its mechanics. The trends of TikTok, viral videos that people imitate and post on the platform, mostly include songs by artists. The latter, of course, also go viral. In fact, according to the company’s own data, a total of 430 songs reached more than a billion views (or listens) within the app during 2021. Of these, 175 tracks charted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The edges also are leveraging the immense reach of the app to promote their music, both on and off the platform, either through the creation of trends or through promotional videos.