Thread by @ruima

Short video co Kuaishou to IPO soon, expected to raise over $5Bn at $60Bn+. Kuaishou has 300 DAU / ~800 MAU, 1H 2020 revenues $4Bn+, primarily from livestreaming (70%) (net losses of $1Bn).

But how's Kuaishou diff from Douyin (TikTok)?

1/ Demographics / Brand - Kuaishou found its popularity in rural China. It's come a long way since its "super earthy" early days, but it's still widely seen as "not nearly as cool" as Douyin. There is actually significant user overlap, but the perception persists.

2/ Algorithm - This, IMO, is the more important difference. Douyin (and all ByteDance algorithmic products) are based on the concept of distributing information as efficiently and effectively as possible. Therefore, community building is not a priority.

Kuaishou, however, sees itself as a social product. It emphasizes interaction between the creator & viewers (actual comments versus just watching or even liking the video). Douyin, in a sense, focuses on building your loyalty to the platform, whereas ...

Kuaishou is more interested in how connected you feel to others on the platform. This isn't a philosophical diff, they arrived at this from empirical data / analysis. As with any choice, there are pros and cons. You can imagine that creators have a bit more power in Kuaishou ...

Dolphin Rsch (Chinese blog) posted these graphs as evidence. In Kuaishou the top influencers started their own "families" ie basically their own agencies / collectives with their own influencer talent. Look at how much the Top 6 dominate in terms of MAU (as % of total).

This next graph I think is not as fair since Douyin ecommerce livestreaming is pretty new. But last Nov (Singles Day month) you can see again distribution of the Top influencer on Kuaishou (43% of Top 10) vs. Douyin (23%). Simba was ~1/3 of Kuaishou TOTAL GMV in 2019.

So these are two different ways of thinking about how to balance the interests of the platform, creator, and users. Kuaishou was trying to give creators more power & get users more engaged directly w creators. Was that the best thing to do? Some are skeptical. What do you think?

I was originally in the pro-Kuaishou camp (esp thinking from POV of creator) but I can see that well-organized & capitalized creators can be kind of dangerous. Douyin on the other hand could burn out its creators. There is no free lunch! Pros & cons, always.

And here's our @TechBuzzChina episode on Kuaishou, which we called the "anti-Douyin / TikTok." We'll be updating it in light of the IPO.

techbuzzchina.com/episodes/ep-55…