Its only two years since the French photosharing app BeReal was launched and it has been on a highly spirited upward trajectory.
Some of the company’s most popular features have become so outstanding that Big Tech social media companies can’t help but blatantly imitate.
The feature is once per day reminder that prompts users to snap and share a quick photo from wherever they happen to be. The feature simply takes up the slogan “it’s time to BeReal” has spread so fast that TikTok had to build their own and named it TikTok Now.
TikTok Now was launched last week, with users in the United States getting it as an inbuilt feature within the TikTok app while in other markets it comes as a stand-alone app for iOS and Android.
With TikTok Now, you receive a daily prompt to record a 10-second video or photo and share it on TikTok. However, you don’t have to tag the location as it is with BeReal. It also allows users to default to a private account for users under 16, meaning that their posts don’t show on the explore page.
It’s not uncommon for Big Tech companies to discreetly and openly copy ideas that are quickly gaining popularity. Instagram already has IG Candid, a feature similar to TikTok Now, while Snapchat’s dual camera feature significantly adopts from BeReal.
“The fear of the incumbents is that this becomes the next TikTok,” said Mark Shmulik, an analyst who covers matters internet told the Washington Post. “So they’ve all scrambled to launch their own version,” hoping that they get a share of the market created by the novel idea.
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