TikTok appears in multiple stories this week, so I'll begin with a bit of a recap of a story I first reported on last week, as new context has emerged. That development is TikTok's launch of its new microdrama app PineDrama.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
TechCrunch has a fascinating piece on the wider context of this move and the rapidly increasing growth and no-longer-niche status of the microdrama. As I said last time, the microdrama is hardly a new concept, albeit that the social video forum might be relatively new. It goes back way past the newspaper serial to the campfire. More recently, supershort episodic writing has found its home in the cell phone novel and in serialization sites like Wattpad and Webtoon.
Staggering Revenue Growth
The figures in the piece are startling. Microdrama apps ReelShort and DramaBox both more than doubled revenue (to $1.2 billion and $276 million respectively). That's the context in which PineDrama is entering the fray.
Interestingly, it's also clear that the genre driving this growth is the same one that's driven much of the healthier parts of the book market in recent years: romantasy. Which surely makes it a growing trend ripe for the exploration of enterprising indie authors.
I noted, finally, that the TechCrunch piece goes into detail on the subject of the speculation I entered into when I spoke about this on the podcast: the inevitable proliferation of AI content on these platforms.
TikTok's New US Structure
And while we are with TikTok, the final dotting and crossing of the details on the new US-based app is currently taking place.
ByteDance finally signed the deal with the new US-based group that will run the platform there. You can read the full details of what the new setup will look like on the TikTok press release site.
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