Given how closely TikTok is linked to music discovery, it wouldn’t be surprising if the company launched its own music streaming app. According to patent filings obtained by Insider, TikTok is working on just that.
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, filed a trademark application for “TikTok Music” with the US Patent and Trademark Office in May. The service, according to the filing, would allow users to buy, listen to, share, and download music. Users would also be able to create, share, and recommend playlists, leave comments on music, and livestream audio and video. Last November, ByteDance applied for a “TikTok Music” trademark in Australia.
ByteDance has prior experience with music streaming. ByteDance will launch Resso, a music streaming app, in India, Brazil, and Indonesia in 2020. Resso includes some of the same features as “TikTok Music,” such as the ability to create playlists, share songs on social media, and interact with the app’s community.
TikTok is also used by ByteDance to bring existing users to Resso. According to The Information, the TikTok app in Brazil includes a button that directs users to Resso so they can listen to the full version of a song of interest, a move that helps keep users within the ByteDance ecosystem.
According to The Information, Resso had over 40 million monthly users across India, Brazil, and Indonesia as of November 2021, a figure that is expected to grow. Earlier this year, Insider reported that Resso’s monthly active users increased by 304 percent in India alone between January 2021 and January 2022, compared to Spotify’s 38 percent growth in the country during the same period.
It’s unclear whether ByteDance intends to create a music streaming app based on the Resso framework or something entirely different. Just as TikTok changed the way social media sites operate, it’s possible that a music streaming app with TikTok integrations will change the music streaming industry, forcing services to adapt.
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