It’s not just Threads that Twitter has to worry about, as TikTok launches a way to talk text via the app.
Twitter is clearly not the platform it once was, and while the new overlord is clearly the main reason why, it doesn’t mean social media users looking for a way to talk with text have to stick with a platform that is beginning to break down.
Options are popping up, whether you check out the decentralised platform that is Mastodon, Zuckerberg’s latest foray into a Twitter alternative that is “Threads”, or even just going back to a social network you might have looked past in recent times.
There are clearly others, including the invite-only BlueSky and the news and story focused Post, but there may even be another alternative for text, and you probably won’t see it coming (unless you’ve read the headline of this story).
It’s TikTok, the social media platform more known for video sharing, which not only is jumping into music, but also text conversation sharing, as well.
In a release this week, TikTok has added text posts as a new format, allowing its users to create a text post on the regular camera posting page, which when selected will let you type up the content of your post compared to capturing a photo or video.
TikTok didn’t call these “TextToks”, but it did promise features will make your text on its platform, including adding sound, location, comments, stickers, tags and hashtags, background colours, and even supporting the “duet” feature it has available for videos.
While it remains to be seen just how successful TikTok’s take on text will be, it’s yet one more player looking to give those who love Twitter some of what they want, but without the new overlord getting in the way.
As for when you’ll get the feature, it appears to be something gradually rolling out. We’ve not yet seen it on our installs of TikTok in Australia beyond the regular text on top of photos and videos, but it could be something we’ll see soon enough.
