ByteDance is serious about social networking

"Everyone knows what Sima Zhao is thinking." Someone once described ByteDance's intention in social networking in this way, and ByteDance has rarely concealed its ambitions in the social field.

Following the release of social products such as Duoshan and Feichat in 2019, ByteDance officially launched the Feichat "PC version" in 2020, which currently only supports logging in by scanning a QR code.

Flipchat, which currently has a PC version, is a social app launched by ByteDance in May 2019. According to the official introduction, Flipchat is not only an instant messaging software, but also a community for discovering like-minded people - you can communicate better with friends who share the same hobbies, making your life richer and more interesting.

In addition to the chat function, Feichat also includes some interest-based functions, including discovering new content, interest groups, and special groups. Users can set new avatars and nicknames in the group. In the "Dynamics" similar to the Moments, in addition to friends, you can also follow other strangers.

In fact, as early as the end of 2018, there were reports that ByteDance intended to enter the social field and launch a product similar to WeChat, namely Feichat. However, on January 15, 2019, Feichat did not appear, and what appeared at the press conference was Duoshan, a video social app.

It is worth mentioning that Duoshan was blocked by WeChat on the day of its release. In addition, although Duoshan and Feiliao are both social apps, Duoshan takes the short video social route based on acquaintance relationships, while Feiliao takes the interest social route.

In the early days of Duoshan’s launch, it won the championship of the App Store free list from January 26 to February 4. However, after a short-term rise, Duoshan did not attract as much attention as products such as Douyin and Toutiao, and failed to open the door to social networking for ByteDance. As of January 17, 2020, Duoshan ranked 135th in the overall list.

Obviously, Duoshan did not complete ByteDance’s social mission, so four months later, Feichat was launched.

Li Xueling, Chairman and CEO of Huya, once expressed his optimism about the emergence of Feichat. It is reported that Li Xueling once posted on WeChat Moments:

I bet Zhang Yiming's Feichat will be successful because I see too many factors for success in it, and I think the opportunity may really come.

It is worth noting that Feichat does not have an entry for "login via WeChat", and users need to verify their login via their mobile phone number. Due to the ban on WeChat channels, Feichat's new user acquisition is limited to a certain extent. In addition, Feichat is a relatively independent product, and ByteDance super apps such as Toutiao and Douyin do not direct traffic to it. It can be said that Feichat can only rely on itself.

From the performance point of view, Feichat's performance is exactly the same as Duoshan. Qimai data shows that on the second day of its launch, Feichat had nearly 200,000 downloads on the App Store. However, it has since shown a cliff-like decline. As of January 17, 2020, Feichat's ranking in the App Store's overall ranking has fallen out of the top 1,500.

However, although Feichat's performance is not satisfactory, ByteDance has not given up on it, but has continued to promote it, as can be seen from the launch of the Feichat PC version.

From the current development, Feichat relies more on organic growth, which seems to be a bit difficult. However, with the support of ByteDance, Feichat's future may still be promising. As Li Xueling added in his circle of friends:

Success means continuing to survive, which does not necessarily mean a big scale. The real scale is the product of time. If you can have a reason to survive on a small scale, you will continue to grow.