Bring New Photo Sharing Experiences: TikTok Introduces Whee

• TikTok is experimenting with new photo-sharing apps “Whee” and “Notes” to enhance engagement and expand their platform beyond short-form videos.
• “Whee” focuses on sharing spontaneous moments with close friends, while “Notes” is a lifestyle platform for sharing informative photo-text content with a broader audience.

The TikTok app is a new application to improve engagement, and also tap into wider use patterns.

TikTok’s latest experiment in app development is a thing known as “Whee”, which is an Instagram-like feed that contains photos, which is designed to be shared among friends.

According to TikTok:

“Whee is a new social app created to keep you connected with your close friends through life’s spontaneous moments. Capture and share real-life photos that only your friends can see, allowing you to be your most authentic self. Whee is the best place for close friends to share life moments.”

However, did TikTok have an earlier release of a still images-based app?

Yes, it was.

Then in the month of April TikTok introduced a new application dubbed “Notes”, which is an app for sharing photos.

It also resembles Instagram however it appears similar to TikTok’s independent application “Lemon8” which it launched in the year before.

Lemon8’s focus is more on promotions and products The use-case is not the same as Whee or Notes.

Then what is it that is it that makes Whee and Notes distinct, and why are TikTok determined to facilitate photo sharing in addition to its primary short-form video application?

As for the differences, Whee seems to be specifically focused on the sharing of friends While Notes has a wider user-base type application.

Notes can be described in the App Store as follows:

“TikTok Notes is a lifestyle platform that offers informative photo-text content about people’s lives, where you can see individuals sharing their travel tips, daily recipes, and more.”

It’s more an IG-like social sharing platform to share visual content and not a closed-off sharing platform.

Concerning why images are so popular, it could be related to Chinese market patterns.

Tencent’s backed Xiaohongshu is another Instagram copied version, has witnessed an increase in popularity within the Chinese market in recent times and has been able to expand to eCommerce potential.

The app seems to be aiming to duplicate the experience With Notes for Western markets. Whee is likely to move towards more personal sharing and perhaps offer users more options for sharing images of their products. Would they also provide information for TikTok advertising?

I’m not sure about that what you mean, however eCommerce is one of the primary areas that TikTok focuses on and the site has to be linked to that in some way.

It does seem odd to launch especially when the majority such activities via Instagram as well as Snapchat.

However, TikTok is testing it in the meantime, so it will be fascinating to see how they plan to draw users to join the interactive application.