Surprisingly large app downloads. Big!
3 innovation and digital news in 1 minute. Every Monday. Episode 413.
Lemon8 strong in the US, a surprise!
Lemon8 is an app by TikTok/Bytedance that has been downloaded a lot in many countries, especially in the US. It is an international version of Xiaohongshu, an app mixing Pinterest, TikTok, Instagram. It has the same architecture as Tiktok — Following and For You page. Opinion: ByteDance is doing something right when they place so many apps on top. TikTok, CapCut (video production) and now Lemon8. Zooming in, ByteDance just like Temu or Shein has been strong on advertising the app (in the Apple Store with thousands of keywords covered). ByteDance is remunarating creators well, and they can share content on both TikTok and Lemon8.
Will we see Lemon8 in Europe soon?
Literally, a personal assistant — Doubao.
A personal assistant called Doubao. A kind of ChatGPT but also a companion one can talk to. This comes from ByteDance and has been heading the app download charts in China for a while. Doubao was launched in August 2024 and is increasing users to a 100 millions (51m monthly active early November). Opinion: Instead of launching a copy of ChatGPT, ByteDance decided to bring a personality to the conversational bot. As a chat, but the usual text and image generation. One understands why Apple is in negotiation with Chinese players to integrate AI features deep into the iOS version in China.
Talk to an AI with a human face.
Christmas present! Always top after Christmas, Meta Horizon.
Just in the US and the UK — Meta Horizon app that accompanies the Meta Quest, is heading the app download charts. On Dec. 26th, 2nd in the US and 3rd in the UK. Meta Horizon is the new name of the app (used to be Meta Quest like the headset). Opinion: Interestingly enough the Meta Horizon app is only on top in two countries, the US and the UK. Not in continental Europe. Games and content mostly in English, but it’s not present in Australia. Content and demos are quite extraordinary, but slow outside the US/UK.
Weird geographic distribution.
