TikTok’s terrible weekend is music to Triller’s ears

The smoke hasn’t cleared, but TikTok’s biggest rival is now at the top of the App Store charts.

Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Skipped the tech news this weekend? You missed a year’s supply of TikTok drama. The tl;dr:

  1. On Friday, President Trump promised to ban TikTok.
  2. Microsoft is in talks to take it over. 
  3. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, may cut ties with it instead.

The smoke hasn’t cleared, but a big TikTok rival is sitting pretty at the top of the App Store charts: Triller.

Triller’s been waiting for this

The 15-second video app is a good bet for dancers who don’t like all that pesky editing.

Upload as many takes as you need, and Triller’s AI will stitch your clips together based on the beat. Is your lip sync a little off? The bot can fix that. 

Triller’s been around since 2015, but it’s having a sweet summer:

  • Last week, Triller lured big-name TikTokers like Josh Richards and Griffin Johnson into its fold.
  • In July, the app got its own Billboard chart — a step toward cementing its hitmaker status. 
  • This weekend, it became the top free iPhone app in the country. 

Triller is buddy-buddy with music mavens 

It snagged investments from the recording arms of Sony, Universal, and Warner Music Group, plus Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Lil Wayne.

So can it take on the reigning lip-sync kingpin? It’s got a long way to go. Triller has just 50m monthly users compared to TikTok’s 800m

***

Read our Q&A with Triller co-owner Jaeson Ma here

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