Spotify, and tiktok
The two apps that I’ll be talking about are Spotify and TikTok. Both of these apps are very different in use, and I’ll be going in depth about each respectively in their own paragraphs. TikTok is an app that allows anyone to upload videos on the app. These videos can be as short as 15 seconds or as long as 10 minutes. Spotify is an app that allows users to stream music.
TikTok was created in 2016 in China and founded by Zhang Yiming and the owner is Bytedance. Tiktok bought the app Music.ly in 2018 this allowed the videos shared on the app to use copyrighted music. TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the app store, being downloaded 3 billion times, it is also free to download. TikTok was the most downloaded app in 2021. The popularity of the app can be credited to the pandemic, “According to Statista, TikTok saw 180% growth among those ages 15-25 during this time frame”(Social Shepheard). Like I stated in the previous paragraph TikTok is an app that allows users to upload videos. These videos can be about anything ranging from comedy, news, art, etc. It’s common for users to download an app then forget it exists not even a week later, but it’s different with TikTok. The app had 1 billion active users in 2021, and the app has 30.8 million active users daily(for IOS). Most TikTok users are ages 10-19, making up 25% of users.
TikTok can also launch average users into stardom. A popular example is Charli D’Amelio. D’Amelio was the first TikTok user to surpass 100 million followers. D’amelio danced and lip-synced to popular songs on the app. Her rise in popularity caused her to have a reality TV show on Hulu and even her own drink at Dunkin Donuts. Another example of a breakout star on the app is PinkPantheress. PinkPantheress is a music artist who started on SoundCloud but promoted her music on TikTok. In 2021 her song “Just for Me” exploded and was used heavily on the app. She talks about how the algorithm on TikTok helped launch her into stardom and how it helps her gauge fans reactions on her songs. PinkPantheress isn’t a one hit wonder either, she released an album that did well on streaming services. Recently she was featured on a song the new Black Panther movie soundtrack. These are just snippets of what TikTok can do for an average user and change their life overnight. You don’t need to be a blow up start to gain money off TikTok though TikTok pays users 2-4 cents per 1,000 views. This may not seem like a lot but if you have multiple videos that have over a million views that’s about $40 per video.
The next app is Spotify. The mobile version of Spotify was launched in 2009, and Spotify was created by Daniel Ek. Spotify is an app that allows users to stream their favorite artists. Spotify is free to download but comes with an optional paid subscription. If you have the free version of Spotify you have to listen to ads in your music, and you can only listen to your music on shuffle. If you have the paid version of Spotify you can pick what songs you listen to, download songs to listen to offline, and have no adds. Most of Spotify’s users are based in Europe (32%), while 22% are based in the United States. Spotify has 422 million active users across the world in 2022.
Most of the users are men (56%) while the other 44% are women. Spotify also is mostly made up of users who are 25-34(29 %), users who are 18-24 are only 3% behind (26%). Spofity saw an increase in downloads after they introduced Spotfiy Wrapped in 2020. Spotify Wrapped is something all users experience. Wrapped tells the user their most streamed song, artist, podcast, top 10 artist etc. September of 2022 195 million users are premium users while 273 are free users. For how useful Spotify is it doesn’t pay it’s artists that well. All artist who post on the platform earn about $5.5 per 1,000 streams. This might not be a big deal if your song gets millions of streams but this is terrible for smaller artists.
TikTok Sources
https://fourweekmba.com/tiktok-business-model/#:~:text=TikTok%20primarily%20monetizes%20its%20business,can%20generate%20revenues%20at%20scale.
https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/tiktok-statistics#:~:text=Ages%2010%2D19%20are%2025,49%20is%2020.3%25%20of%20users.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-58319555
Spotify Sources
https://fourweekmba.com/spotify-users/
https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/spotify-statistics