On Monday May 20th, TikTok’s parent company Bytedance quietly launched a new messaging and social networking app called Flipchat, or 飞聊 (‘fly chat’in Chinese).
The app is available on App Store as well as several Chinese Android app markets, but not on Google Play. Bytedance kept quiet about the launch, likely in order to avoid national spotlight.
Flipchat briefly gained momentum when Bytedance reportedly bought the domain name flipchat.cn in Oct, 2018. There was also a rumor that Bytedance was going to launch the app during the New Year holidays.
The new-released app is a hybrid of instant messenger and interest-based forums, with the latter reminding users of Facebook groups or the well established Chinese social network named Douban . That being said, features of Flipchat and WeChat overlap with each other in parts, but the rest vary.
When words typed in the chat box matched Flipchat’s stamps, relevant stickers will pop up on the messaging interface. This feature is probably inspired by the world-leading instant communication app LINE. Nevertheless, stickers and memes shown in Flipchat are catered to Chinese netizens, and users are not required to download them beforehand. In contrast, only downloaded stickers or memes will pop up when in WeChat.
Flipchat features instant messaging and news feeds, which are similar to WeChat. For the messaging part, it not only supports voice message, just as most apps do, but also features real-time speech-to-text translation, allowing users to “see” voice messages sent by others, and send text messages while speaking them out.
On Flipchat’s newsfeed, which is visually inspired by WeChat’s “moments”, users can post updates with or without pictures or videos. A video-editing process was added after recording or uploading videos which allows users to add music.
Flipchat also puts in efforts to bring like-minded people together through creating interest-based communities, which is just like Facebook groups or Douban, a social networking site in China. For example, Flipchat allows users to search for and join groups and interest communities, while WeChat users can only search for personal and official accounts, news articles and in-app features provided by what’s known as “mini programs”.
After joining an interest group of community and friending other people, a user is able to see and like their feed posts.
In China, where messaging is dominated by WeChat, people are less inclined to try out a new messaging app if they cannot find their acquaintances on it. But Flipchat may bypass that obstacle by introducing the interest group feature. It makes Flipchat not just an IM app for acquaintances, but also a social network for people from afar, and may be the key to Bytedance’s user onboarding tactics.
With a different product positioning, a lot of people consider Flipchat a major rival of WeChat. However, many have came, and gone, before Flipchat to take on Tencent’s dominance. In fact, WeChat has already blocked content with regard to Flipchat to be shared within the app.
As the country’s largest internet company and a social giant, Tencent not only rules the messaging market, but also has its fingers in group-based social networking through WeChat’s older sister QQ, another messaging app which nearly all Chinese people have used at some point in their lives.
Tencent’s WeChat is also a mega-platform by itself, integrating rideshare, ticket buying, food ordering, payment and many features Chinese people cannot live without. Few such features can be found in Flipchat.
However, with TikTok/Douyin, Toutiao, Xigua Video and more, Bytedance’s success in building a matrix of apps for Chinese and global audience proves that it is a force to be reckoned with.
