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TikTok earlier this month launched a new social app calledWhee , an Instagram - similar inspection and repair for admit pic to share with friend . Like Instagram , Whee also supports the use of photo filters and include messaging . However , the company ’s plan for Whee are n’t percipient , as the app has relatively few downloads and has yet to advertise itself via Apple ’s Search Ads , harmonize to fresh data from app intelligence firm Appfigures .
Am I the first one to report this ? Bytedance , the developer of Tiktok , is testing a new app call up Whee . It ’s presently not usable in the US but it is live in over a dozen countries.https://t.co/iNVQlVQ5C2https://t.co/n9rKnrHovE
Whee is link up to TikTok , which is owned by Beijing - based ByteDance but is published by TikTok , not its parent , grant to its App Store listing .
As of Tuesday , Whee had only gained 13,000 total global downloads on iOS and somewhere north of 10,000 Android downloads , per Google Play data . It ’s also intelligibly not being pushed in the U.S. for the time being , as its top markets on iOS include Malaysia , Turkey , Saudi Arabia , Peru and Indonesia . Still , those countries are only conduce a little issue of downloads .
For instance , the No . 1 market , Malaysia , delivered 2,400 downloads while Indonesia rounded up 5th place with just 800 installs . Because of the pocket-sized routine , these are potential downloads from people who randomly came across Whee while searching the App Store . In smaller marketplace with few apps , Whee made it into the Top 500 societal apps , though never as high as the Top 10 and mostly well past 50 .
What ’s more , Appfigures enunciate ByteDance has n’t yet taste to push Whee via Apple ’s Search Ads , which help apps rank extremely when App Store users look for apps using specific keywords . There has n’t been any Apple Search Ads activity connected with Whee as of yet , the firm found . In gain , user feedback from those who found Whee is also fairly tepid , as the app has an Overall rating of 3.6 out of 5 globally , across 31 App Store ratings , only 10 of which have reviews .
ByteDance has not notice on its plans for Whee , but the timing of the app ’s launching has raised eyebrows render that President Biden officiallysigned the TikTok prohibition into lawin late April after the House pass a revise banker’s bill that forced either a TikTok ban or sale . ( TikTok has sincesuedthe U.S. to block the law of nature from coming into effect , which will at least detain the Bachelor of Arts in Nursing for some time while the legality is turn out in the judicature . )
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Whee ’s comer could be a plan atomic number 5 of sorts that allow ByteDance to conserve a societal bearing in the U.S. , even if TikTok ’s banning is upheld .
This is n’t the first time ByteDance has tried to generate interestingness in other societal apps outside of TikTok . Earlier in 2023 , the company quietlylaunched another Instagram - like app , Lemon8 in the U.S. and U.K. , and even pay TikTok influencers to stake about the app for seed its initial mental object . Those campaign did n’t at once pay off ; by November 2023 , the app ’s U.S. downloads on iOS had only reach 2.5 million — not bad numbers for a young inauguration , but nothing near the size of TikTok , which has overa billion monthly active user , including the170 millionin the U.S. However , Lemon8 could be a dull - burn attempt at growth . Today , it ’s the No . 2 Lifestyle app in the U.S. , with intimately 7.7 million iOS installs in this market .
ByteDance also operate another popular picture app , CapCut , often used for making TikTok video . And it briefly dabbled witha BeReal rival , TikTok Now , though that was shut downafter less than a year . Currently , it ’s testing another Instagram competitor , TikTok Notes .
Whether Whee will come after the same playbook as Lemon8 remains to be seen . But if your favorite TikTok influencer starts every which way talking about Whee at some point in the future , be aware they were plausibly pay to do so .
