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Attention Factory: The Story of TikTok & China’s ByteDance
How did TikTok rise so fast?
Who’s really behind China’s first truly global internet giant?
In 2012, ByteDance was just a handful of geeks working out of a scrappy four-bedroom Beijing apartment.
Today, it’s the world’s fastest-growing tech behemoth worth over $100 billion.
Written by China internet specialist and internationally recognized speaker Matthew Brennan and edited by TechCrunch journalist Rita Liao.
Attention Factory is packed with over 300 pages of original analysis and exclusive reporting that you cannot find elsewhere.
The rise and fall of Vine and Musical.ly
The company’s iconic founder, Zhang Yiming
The original China version of TikTok—Douyin
ByteDance’s first flagship app, Toutiao
The power of short video memes
And so much more...
Discover how recommendation engines, content operations, and good old China-style growth hacking hold the key to this company’s success.
A creative blend of storytelling and analysis, Attention Factory is perfect for business professionals, technology firm investors, and anyone passionate about how the internet is impacting our lives.
Who’s really behind China’s first truly global internet giant?
In 2012, ByteDance was just a handful of geeks working out of a scrappy four-bedroom Beijing apartment.
Today, it’s the world’s fastest-growing tech behemoth worth over $100 billion.
Written by China internet specialist and internationally recognized speaker Matthew Brennan and edited by TechCrunch journalist Rita Liao.
Attention Factory is packed with over 300 pages of original analysis and exclusive reporting that you cannot find elsewhere.
The rise and fall of Vine and Musical.ly
The company’s iconic founder, Zhang Yiming
The original China version of TikTok—Douyin
ByteDance’s first flagship app, Toutiao
The power of short video memes
And so much more...
Discover how recommendation engines, content operations, and good old China-style growth hacking hold the key to this company’s success.
A creative blend of storytelling and analysis, Attention Factory is perfect for business professionals, technology firm investors, and anyone passionate about how the internet is impacting our lives.
304 pages, Paperback
Published October 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
March 1, 2021
Жанг Иминг - създателят на TikTok има необикновена история. Компанията му ByteDanse успява да наложи няколко мобилни приложения на жестокия китайски пазар, а едно от тях става световноизвестно. На какво се дължи успехът му?
Идеята за споделяне на кратки клипове не е нито нова, нито уникална. Многобройни мобилни приложения са създадени по-рано от TikTok, но никое от тях не достига успехите му. Според самия Жанг Иминг ключовите фактори за постигането на световна доминация са таргетиране на правилната начална публика, използване на изкуствен интелект за персонализиране на предложените клипове, както и повсемествното разпространение на 4G технологията, позволяваща всеки да стане "инфлуенсър" за броени дни.
Живеем в свят на безмилостна борба за вниманието на публиката. TikTok е големият победител, за който ще чуваме все повече. Приложението е символ на тъжния факт, че задържането на вниманието върху една конкретна задача ще става все по-трудно. Кое е най-доброто, което може да предложите само за 15 секунди?
Идеята за споделяне на кратки клипове не е нито нова, нито уникална. Многобройни мобилни приложения са създадени по-рано от TikTok, но никое от тях не достига успехите му. Според самия Жанг Иминг ключовите фактори за постигането на световна доминация са таргетиране на правилната начална публика, използване на изкуствен интелект за персонализиране на предложените клипове, както и повсемествното разпространение на 4G технологията, позволяваща всеки да стане "инфлуенсър" за броени дни.
Живеем в свят на безмилостна борба за вниманието на публиката. TikTok е големият победител, за който ще чуваме все повече. Приложението е символ на тъжния факт, че задържането на вниманието върху една конкретна задача ще става все по-трудно. Кое е най-доброто, което може да предложите само за 15 секунди?
December 6, 2020
Lots of business tips from the USA already arrived in Poland (thank God entrepreneurs in the US use English!). Tips from China only start arriving. If in US and European books you don't see "anything new and mindblowing" then now you can read about one of the biggest China tech giants.
From the book about the company which created TikTok you can learn:
- why TikTok achieved global scale, but Musical.ly and other competitors don't,
- how did look the beginnings of ByteDance,
- what those famous TikTok's algorithms are,
- how over years the way in which people consumed content was changing.
This is also a history about how a short video became a daily habbit of millions of people.
From the book about the company which created TikTok you can learn:
- why TikTok achieved global scale, but Musical.ly and other competitors don't,
- how did look the beginnings of ByteDance,
- what those famous TikTok's algorithms are,
- how over years the way in which people consumed content was changing.
This is also a history about how a short video became a daily habbit of millions of people.
September 1, 2021
The story of Tik tok is not that of a sudden and surprising success. Instead, it's one of a deliberate and carefully curated strategy which came around at the right time. It's a story of how with careful market study and gradual customer base recognition, augmented by the help of machine learning induced information dissemination was sculpted into a massive industry. It's a chronicle of the transformation of search engine into a recommendation engine.
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Attention factory by Matthew Brennan gives us an insight into how ByteDance became the fastest growing multi billion dollar behemoth while it started from a small group of geeks working out of a low-key apartment in Beijing. The first half of the book details how the technology was crafted to create something that could enable users to provide with answers even if they didn't know what they were looking for. This enables customer retention as well as a sense of FOMO if you don't join the brigade which the algorithm chooses to promote. The second half on the other hand focuses more on the marketing as well as product positioning side of things which enables long lasting platform and consumer driven product with a stable consumer base. This idea encapsulated everything done by its predecessors such as YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Musical.ly and several other mobile applications now lost in the mist of obscurity.
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The product which started as a simple news website based on a machine learning enabled consumer centric recommendation engine went on to be the synonym for cringe. How did this transformation happen. What were the political reasons due to which it was banned in several countries including India? How did the company survive in the super competitive market where primary product is people's attention? What were the steps taken to make sure we spend hours just swiping up and watching unnecessary "content" and why even after everything we read and hear about this, we just can't stop?
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A brilliant and insightful read. Recommended to everyone. As the author says, this won't be the last book on the App and the company. It's definitely not a trend, it's a force to be reckoned with. It's long term impact must be analysed and understood, both on the psyche of young children joining the customer base as well as on the people ready to join the workforce. If not tackled carefully, the demographic dividend we boast of will easily become a demographic disaster.
.
.
.
Attention factory by Matthew Brennan gives us an insight into how ByteDance became the fastest growing multi billion dollar behemoth while it started from a small group of geeks working out of a low-key apartment in Beijing. The first half of the book details how the technology was crafted to create something that could enable users to provide with answers even if they didn't know what they were looking for. This enables customer retention as well as a sense of FOMO if you don't join the brigade which the algorithm chooses to promote. The second half on the other hand focuses more on the marketing as well as product positioning side of things which enables long lasting platform and consumer driven product with a stable consumer base. This idea encapsulated everything done by its predecessors such as YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Musical.ly and several other mobile applications now lost in the mist of obscurity.
.
.
.
The product which started as a simple news website based on a machine learning enabled consumer centric recommendation engine went on to be the synonym for cringe. How did this transformation happen. What were the political reasons due to which it was banned in several countries including India? How did the company survive in the super competitive market where primary product is people's attention? What were the steps taken to make sure we spend hours just swiping up and watching unnecessary "content" and why even after everything we read and hear about this, we just can't stop?
.
.
.
A brilliant and insightful read. Recommended to everyone. As the author says, this won't be the last book on the App and the company. It's definitely not a trend, it's a force to be reckoned with. It's long term impact must be analysed and understood, both on the psyche of young children joining the customer base as well as on the people ready to join the workforce. If not tackled carefully, the demographic dividend we boast of will easily become a demographic disaster.
December 18, 2020
TikTok is perhaps the first social media app developed by a company in China that has gained close to worldwide adoption. This book provides a good start to understanding how TikTok became so popular, and why it has succeeded in the short-video space while many of its social media competitors failed. I thoroughly enjoyed Matthew's narration of TikTok's origin story, along with his comprehensive descriptions of the subtle cultural differences and competitive technology landscape in China.
Throughout the book, Matthew makes several interesting observations about TikTok and ByteDance (the parent company), from CEO Zhang Yiming's initial naming of the company (he named ByteDance in English first, before finding the Chinese name, because he wanted the company to be a global company), to TikTok's 'moat' that's making it challenging for competitors from moving in and taking its market share (e.g. Lasso, Reels).
12/18 update: Dua Lipa's new music video for her single 'Levitating', using a mashup of TikTok videos, has close to 1M views on YouTube. Further proof that TikTok has succeeded in defining the short video corner of the consumer Internet. Hard to imagine many people thinking of TikTok as 'cringy' back in 2018, which also goes to show how successful the app is in re-defining its public image.
This is the first English book I've seen dedicated to analyzing TikTok and ByteDance's rise, and I hope it will be the first of many to come.
Throughout the book, Matthew makes several interesting observations about TikTok and ByteDance (the parent company), from CEO Zhang Yiming's initial naming of the company (he named ByteDance in English first, before finding the Chinese name, because he wanted the company to be a global company), to TikTok's 'moat' that's making it challenging for competitors from moving in and taking its market share (e.g. Lasso, Reels).
12/18 update: Dua Lipa's new music video for her single 'Levitating', using a mashup of TikTok videos, has close to 1M views on YouTube. Further proof that TikTok has succeeded in defining the short video corner of the consumer Internet. Hard to imagine many people thinking of TikTok as 'cringy' back in 2018, which also goes to show how successful the app is in re-defining its public image.
This is the first English book I've seen dedicated to analyzing TikTok and ByteDance's rise, and I hope it will be the first of many to come.
January 21, 2021
Fun & engaging. Covers everything from the founders story, to the M&A involved to the tech involved. Even for someone for who followed the rise of TikTok, lot of details don't seep out of China. Breezy read - finished it in just over a day.
January 22, 2022
This was an interesting book.
It honestly wasn't too groundbreaking to me, but I learned a lot about TikTok.
Specifically, I enjoyed learning the strategies and business goals behind TikTok and generally ByteDance and the relationship with state-run media.
Touched a bit on politics, but not too much.
3.7/5
It honestly wasn't too groundbreaking to me, but I learned a lot about TikTok.
Specifically, I enjoyed learning the strategies and business goals behind TikTok and generally ByteDance and the relationship with state-run media.
Touched a bit on politics, but not too much.
3.7/5
Read
September 16, 2021Fantastic overview and deep dive of what has become a global juggernaut and the most valuable startup in the world.
Matthew's insider views as a foreigner living for years in the same city as the headquarters of Bytedance enables him to unpack and unlock valuable insights that are a must read.
Highly recommended!
Matthew's insider views as a foreigner living for years in the same city as the headquarters of Bytedance enables him to unpack and unlock valuable insights that are a must read.
Highly recommended!
February 20, 2022
"Google is a company without borders, I hope Bytedance will be as border-less as Google"
If and when the history of the evolution of the Internet will be written down 100 years from now, Tiktok will definitely feature in the video content section. Downloaded by over 3 billion users across the world, it boasts 1.2 billion active global users, signifying a growth of 1400% since its launch in the year 2017. For the comparison, it took Facebook and Instagram almost a decade to reach a user base of that size.
Tiktok has got to be one of the biggest global exports from China. Very few names come up in mind when we talk about global internet companies out of China and Tiktok has done the impossible! Currently present in 141 countries and 39 languages, it has its largest user base in the USA outside of China (India used to hold this position until the ban last year)
The book provides a fantastic overview of what has become a global phenomenon today. Starting from the humble beginnings of being a small project within the Bytedance to an app full of hiccups and failures that finally took off with the right rebranding and growth hack strategy devised by the founder Zhang Yiming himself. "Going global" was the strategy that he had in mind from day one. However, they kept "globalize products, localize content" in mind while expanding across geographies.
One of the biggest strengths of Tiktok is its legendary recommendation algorithm which centers around three profiles: the content profile, the user profile, and the environment profile. That last part is responsible for providing you with different recommendations during work, travel, and daily commuting. The algorithm has helped discover new celebrities, as opposed to only popularising the content from established influencers that happens on other video platforms. Old Town Road & Lil Nas X became household names in the entertainment industry, thanks to Tiktok's recommendation algorithm.
They say timing is everything. One of the major factors that helped tip the scale in Tiktok dominance globally was the right timing. With both smartphones and the 4G internet becoming accessible and cheaper, it provided the perfect recipe for global penetration. The other primary factor was the timely acquisition of Musical.ly that gave wings to their global ambitions and short-circuited the entire process,
The book is a must-read if you want to understand the nuances of the Chinese internet industry and technology. It provides you the perfect window to learn about the execution and growth hacking strategies being leveraged in China's tech industry today.
If and when the history of the evolution of the Internet will be written down 100 years from now, Tiktok will definitely feature in the video content section. Downloaded by over 3 billion users across the world, it boasts 1.2 billion active global users, signifying a growth of 1400% since its launch in the year 2017. For the comparison, it took Facebook and Instagram almost a decade to reach a user base of that size.
Tiktok has got to be one of the biggest global exports from China. Very few names come up in mind when we talk about global internet companies out of China and Tiktok has done the impossible! Currently present in 141 countries and 39 languages, it has its largest user base in the USA outside of China (India used to hold this position until the ban last year)
The book provides a fantastic overview of what has become a global phenomenon today. Starting from the humble beginnings of being a small project within the Bytedance to an app full of hiccups and failures that finally took off with the right rebranding and growth hack strategy devised by the founder Zhang Yiming himself. "Going global" was the strategy that he had in mind from day one. However, they kept "globalize products, localize content" in mind while expanding across geographies.
One of the biggest strengths of Tiktok is its legendary recommendation algorithm which centers around three profiles: the content profile, the user profile, and the environment profile. That last part is responsible for providing you with different recommendations during work, travel, and daily commuting. The algorithm has helped discover new celebrities, as opposed to only popularising the content from established influencers that happens on other video platforms. Old Town Road & Lil Nas X became household names in the entertainment industry, thanks to Tiktok's recommendation algorithm.
They say timing is everything. One of the major factors that helped tip the scale in Tiktok dominance globally was the right timing. With both smartphones and the 4G internet becoming accessible and cheaper, it provided the perfect recipe for global penetration. The other primary factor was the timely acquisition of Musical.ly that gave wings to their global ambitions and short-circuited the entire process,
The book is a must-read if you want to understand the nuances of the Chinese internet industry and technology. It provides you the perfect window to learn about the execution and growth hacking strategies being leveraged in China's tech industry today.
July 20, 2021
История TikTok и его материнской компании - китайской ByteDance. Давно интересующийся Китаем журналист Мэтью Бреннан педантично собрал материал по открытым источникам, осмыслил и упаковал в достаточно детализированный, но не занудный рассказ. Мастрид для всех, кто занимается онлайн-проектами, да и вообще познавательно.
October 27, 2020
This book is a must read for startup founders, especially outside of China. It is quite the page turner and goes into depth on how TikTok started in China under a different (local) name, almost failed and then took the world by storm.
There are plenty of lessons for new founders on how run a company, hire the best and thing strategically.
Highly recommended.
There are plenty of lessons for new founders on how run a company, hire the best and thing strategically.
Highly recommended.
November 21, 2022
I stopped using Social Media Apps of all kinds by and large after 2014. So much so that I never even tried using anything that came after FB! To this day, I can’t recall my last login to Twitter and am barely active on FB.
So it was a bit of a gamble for me to pick up a book about an app which i had actively avoided using at the time it was available for download in India. I read the book mainly due to a recommendation of sorts from a friend Mayur Pabari. And I am so glad I read it!
Working as a banker for 12 years now, I used to often think what exactly was the reason for such high valuations of these mobile apps! This book gave me insights as to what were the reasons for the success of various platforms, and I can now join some dots, and have a better understanding of how they earn. And thus, a possibility of reaching a realistic valuation.
The author has done justice to his quest or atleast done a great job of helping someone like me (who has not used most of these apps) understand so much about their development, growth/ failure, reasons for the growth / failure, earning model, increased valuation etc.
A shoutout to any one who is intrigued as to
How apps make money or why some stay and most fade out. Read this.
So it was a bit of a gamble for me to pick up a book about an app which i had actively avoided using at the time it was available for download in India. I read the book mainly due to a recommendation of sorts from a friend Mayur Pabari. And I am so glad I read it!
Working as a banker for 12 years now, I used to often think what exactly was the reason for such high valuations of these mobile apps! This book gave me insights as to what were the reasons for the success of various platforms, and I can now join some dots, and have a better understanding of how they earn. And thus, a possibility of reaching a realistic valuation.
The author has done justice to his quest or atleast done a great job of helping someone like me (who has not used most of these apps) understand so much about their development, growth/ failure, reasons for the growth / failure, earning model, increased valuation etc.
A shoutout to any one who is intrigued as to
How apps make money or why some stay and most fade out. Read this.
August 21, 2021
For everyone working in the tech industry, especially in Growth/UA/Marketing teams, I must say that Attention Factory is a mandatory book. I think I've never seen a Chinese company being studied (sometimes investigated?) with some much depth and details as Matthew presented.
To me, the most interesting passage is when the book describes the so-called Operations Teams at the Chinese tech titans. Employees that manually search for users/content/whatever on the app in order to improve it and/or bring more growth (new users). It amazes me because is not common to see teams like that in Western tech companies. Why's that? Those companies don't see the value? Or it's because Chinese labor cost is so lower? Maybe both?
As the author points out in the Epilogue, I feel that we need probably 5 books to tell Bytedance's full story. Looking forward to these new books.
To me, the most interesting passage is when the book describes the so-called Operations Teams at the Chinese tech titans. Employees that manually search for users/content/whatever on the app in order to improve it and/or bring more growth (new users). It amazes me because is not common to see teams like that in Western tech companies. Why's that? Those companies don't see the value? Or it's because Chinese labor cost is so lower? Maybe both?
As the author points out in the Epilogue, I feel that we need probably 5 books to tell Bytedance's full story. Looking forward to these new books.
April 20, 2022
This book was recommended by the CEO of our company and I think it was a pretty good read. The early history of Zhang Yiming and ByteDance's inception was somewhat dry and not as interesting as the book set out to be.
However, there are some great insights on the later chapters: from how Chinese apps were able to not only approach user acquisition with highly scalable data methods, but also through manual, labor-intensive efforts such as celebrity endorsements and media exposure, to how Tencent and Facebook failed to capture the zeigesist of short videos and the meme cultures, to how the algorithmic nature of the platform's content distribution can quickly turn TikTok's early reputation for quacky cringe video to a hotspot that attract hotshot content creators and online marketers.
However, there are some great insights on the later chapters: from how Chinese apps were able to not only approach user acquisition with highly scalable data methods, but also through manual, labor-intensive efforts such as celebrity endorsements and media exposure, to how Tencent and Facebook failed to capture the zeigesist of short videos and the meme cultures, to how the algorithmic nature of the platform's content distribution can quickly turn TikTok's early reputation for quacky cringe video to a hotspot that attract hotshot content creators and online marketers.
August 26, 2021
A very good book on ByteDance and it's products: Toutiao, Douyin, TikTok and the short video phenomenon that has taken over the world. This book describes is good detail the journey and how beneath the seemingly simple product lies a bunch of content classification algorithms, recommendation algorithms, designing of a user experience which resonates with users, growth hacks and fostering a rich creator community. This book also covers why the global technology giants have not been able to crack this space at a global scale. A very good read for anyone interested in the consumer tech space.
September 10, 2021
A lot has gone into works! There was one picture in the book that summarises how TikTok and its competition are similar yet so different than TikTok. A real deep dive to explain why TikTok worked and others did not.
There are 2 great lessons that are outlined in the rise of the app:
1. Timing
2. Pivoting
Anybody can build the app of short videos but Yiming built a phenomenal app at the right time. Started with news app, then jokes, turned into a short-video app. The journey was agile and transformational at every stage. Most importantly it was timing combined with pivoting led to the rise.
There are 2 great lessons that are outlined in the rise of the app:
1. Timing
2. Pivoting
Anybody can build the app of short videos but Yiming built a phenomenal app at the right time. Started with news app, then jokes, turned into a short-video app. The journey was agile and transformational at every stage. Most importantly it was timing combined with pivoting led to the rise.
August 21, 2021
Detailed account on the rise of Tik Tok
Well researched piece, it's not just pure praise for the company but also looking at their early somewhat questionable growth tactics, copycats and other hurdles along the way.
Well researched piece, it's not just pure praise for the company but also looking at their early somewhat questionable growth tactics, copycats and other hurdles along the way.
April 12, 2022
If you want to know why tiktok is so addictive then read this book.. it talks about how tiktok algorithm works, why some videos are popular and some not, how recommendation system works etc.. moreover you'll learn what it takes to build a company from scratch..
February 27, 2021
A thought-provoking account about a team that seems to have best nailed the attention economy so far. I am fascinated and unsettled in almost equal measure. This international success story seems a lot about the lever human pulsions provide and how much one could and should use that lever. It also made me wonder if China ain't the actual experimentation nation these days. Don't search for another book, this one comes recommended 😉
Keywording
American dream App. Anger, a form of mental laziness. App pre-install conundrum. Apps building a core graph. App factory to avoid the fad. BATX and TMD go FAANG. Central User Profile and Interest Graph, the core asset. Challenges so that no one has to think. Content, user, and environment profiles. Content, not social platform. Copy from China age. Cultivate Committed Community. Collective challenges and advanced filters to break into the "Japans" of the world. Data network effect. Don't make them think.. Douyin, shake the shaky. Experimentation Nation. From people looking for information to information looking for people. Globalize products, localize content. Jack's brashness & confidence vs Yiming's mild-mannered & gentleness. Japan, the litmus test. Leanback convenience. Lowbrow traffic acquisition. Masses to massive. Oil the data and content flywheels. One metric obsession. Passive is the new active. Pump a pulse, big buck style. Remove technical, creative and motivational barriers to make a rocketship lift off. Record beautiful life, to cross the chasm. Reveal, Dance, Challenge, Filter and Concept Triggers. Screen estate, the most precious real estate. Scrooge doesn't scale. Start with the filter. Television entertainment for the mobile age. Toutiao, the news reads you. World Wild West, legally.
Keywording
American dream App. Anger, a form of mental laziness. App pre-install conundrum. Apps building a core graph. App factory to avoid the fad. BATX and TMD go FAANG. Central User Profile and Interest Graph, the core asset. Challenges so that no one has to think. Content, user, and environment profiles. Content, not social platform. Copy from China age. Cultivate Committed Community. Collective challenges and advanced filters to break into the "Japans" of the world. Data network effect. Don't make them think.. Douyin, shake the shaky. Experimentation Nation. From people looking for information to information looking for people. Globalize products, localize content. Jack's brashness & confidence vs Yiming's mild-mannered & gentleness. Japan, the litmus test. Leanback convenience. Lowbrow traffic acquisition. Masses to massive. Oil the data and content flywheels. One metric obsession. Passive is the new active. Pump a pulse, big buck style. Remove technical, creative and motivational barriers to make a rocketship lift off. Record beautiful life, to cross the chasm. Reveal, Dance, Challenge, Filter and Concept Triggers. Screen estate, the most precious real estate. Scrooge doesn't scale. Start with the filter. Television entertainment for the mobile age. Toutiao, the news reads you. World Wild West, legally.
August 3, 2021
Muitas informações sobre a ByteDance. Ajuda a compreender o negócio da empresa, seus líderes e aspirações.
February 16, 2022
Good read, filled with useful insights and tips suitable for you if you're interested in building international social media or large scale online business.
Read
June 12, 2021Nice
January 4, 2021
A nice and comprehensive book on how Bytedance started and came into power today.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 26, 2021
A breathtaking whirlwind tour of ByteDance’s history and the environments that it operated in.
January 4, 2021
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I had seen an online PDF with most the data heavy charts and expected a deep analysis of numbers & general insights.
But this is so much more and so much more interesting!
Matthew Brennan has gone into amazing detail in areas while maintaining a very easy to follow and captivating story split out into chapters that slightly overlap. The way China works vs the West, the way this very unlikely clone of a clone app that we know as Tiktok, came to be and take over the world’s culture, it’s fascinating. I learned so much more than I bargained for here and was thoroughly entertained with these amazing real life characters and how ByteDance is much more than just Tiktok and how Silicon Valley may be copying China more in the future rather than vice versa.
But this is so much more and so much more interesting!
Matthew Brennan has gone into amazing detail in areas while maintaining a very easy to follow and captivating story split out into chapters that slightly overlap. The way China works vs the West, the way this very unlikely clone of a clone app that we know as Tiktok, came to be and take over the world’s culture, it’s fascinating. I learned so much more than I bargained for here and was thoroughly entertained with these amazing real life characters and how ByteDance is much more than just Tiktok and how Silicon Valley may be copying China more in the future rather than vice versa.
January 25, 2022
The Attention Factory - The story of TikTok
- Book Review
The author does great research into Yiming's childhood and college days and explores Yiming's clearheaded decision making prowess.
Tiktok' success cannot be attributed to just sheer luck as he analyzes the clever decision making behind every major feature.
Every startup that Yiming worked for, he picked up essential building blocks for his grand castle-Tiktok.
It could be his real estate startup where he learnt to release 5-6 apps and then based on response, back all his resources on just 1 app.
At his 'Headlines' app, he understood the pivotal need to understand user profiling and started developing TikTok's greatest strength - Accurate Recommendation Engine, using which he could double or triple the time users spent on his app, because of the content exactly tailored to their tastes was seamlessly and endlessly served.
He started developing this recommendation engine, when even YouTube hadn't started working on it.
Another angle that the Author brilliantly covers is the insane app competition in China. Billions of dollars are pumped in by industry leaders like Wechat to replicate TikTok's app and even more dollars to market these apps. But the ecosystem that Yiming built and the incentives he built to attract content creator prevents his competition from cracking his kingdom.
Then Yiming's ambition takes him to conquer the most conservative overseas market - JAPAN. The initial tweaks his team make to attract content creators is very creative and successful.
When Yiming enters US, they are surprised by the poor level of competition and their technical prowess. Tiktok's recommendation engine is far superior and once they acquire Musical.ly in US which was a niche app for preteens, they tweak it to cater to content creators from all sectors of life.
After few hiccups, their growth and addiction is unstoppable. The story ends in 2020, where the US govt is threatening Tiktok to split and be acquired by a US owner.
Overall, great read over three days. Interesting exposure to how the Chinese ecosystem works and the sheer competition they have to crack to become a success, that the world market seems easy for them.
- Raghavender Velpula
- Book Review
The author does great research into Yiming's childhood and college days and explores Yiming's clearheaded decision making prowess.
Tiktok' success cannot be attributed to just sheer luck as he analyzes the clever decision making behind every major feature.
Every startup that Yiming worked for, he picked up essential building blocks for his grand castle-Tiktok.
It could be his real estate startup where he learnt to release 5-6 apps and then based on response, back all his resources on just 1 app.
At his 'Headlines' app, he understood the pivotal need to understand user profiling and started developing TikTok's greatest strength - Accurate Recommendation Engine, using which he could double or triple the time users spent on his app, because of the content exactly tailored to their tastes was seamlessly and endlessly served.
He started developing this recommendation engine, when even YouTube hadn't started working on it.
Another angle that the Author brilliantly covers is the insane app competition in China. Billions of dollars are pumped in by industry leaders like Wechat to replicate TikTok's app and even more dollars to market these apps. But the ecosystem that Yiming built and the incentives he built to attract content creator prevents his competition from cracking his kingdom.
Then Yiming's ambition takes him to conquer the most conservative overseas market - JAPAN. The initial tweaks his team make to attract content creators is very creative and successful.
When Yiming enters US, they are surprised by the poor level of competition and their technical prowess. Tiktok's recommendation engine is far superior and once they acquire Musical.ly in US which was a niche app for preteens, they tweak it to cater to content creators from all sectors of life.
After few hiccups, their growth and addiction is unstoppable. The story ends in 2020, where the US govt is threatening Tiktok to split and be acquired by a US owner.
Overall, great read over three days. Interesting exposure to how the Chinese ecosystem works and the sheer competition they have to crack to become a success, that the world market seems easy for them.
- Raghavender Velpula
April 5, 2021
33rd book of 2021: Red Ocean Strategy
“We must face the fact that for 96% of people, their needs are so vulgar,” explained Gao Han, a senior UI designer, and ByteDance employee number twenty-two. He confirmed the app’s reputation was well-earned, “Toutiao is of course trashy. It’s all click-bait, all kinds of messy news.”
In the west tech companies like to think of themselves as innovators, pursuing a ‘blue ocean strategy’ where competition can be ignored and innovation is paramount. The culture created by original tech giants Google and Microsoft has led to an entire industry that pulls its punches and operates with cozy margins. The Chinese alternate reality of tech after the establishment of BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent), is the opposite: a red ocean where oxygen has been depleted and sharks abound. Business was conducted like a brutal guerilla war in which developers, engineers, and operations staff worked themselves to death under grueling schedules in which speed of execution was everything.
Bytedance, with its flagship products of Toutiao 今日头条 and Tiktok 抖音 has emerged from the brawl as a winner on a grand scale. With Toutiao, the race to the bottom in eyeballs for newsfeed had been accomplished long ago. With sections filled with nothing but pretty girls (美女) Toutiao’s topic selection was low brow but successful. Since BAT was missing the feed-based company analog to Facebook, there was an opening for Bytedance to succeed. Pony Ma’s "stance at the time towards algorithmic recommendation could be described as, at best, suspicious, at worst, dismissive."
Tiktok itself is arguably the clone of a clone of a clone. Bytedance was only able to emerge from a crowded field by copying the key to retention around the combination of music + short form videos and then pouring gasoline on it quick enough to pull away from the copycats. Adding music to videos produced the same results as adding filters to pictures, effectively transforming smartphone cameras into a karaoke engine. The true irony is that this strategy didn’t first gain traction in China; most students were too busy studying for exams to produce content. So bytedance turned to inorganic growth for both content production and consumption. For content production: “You have to attract immigration, and in order to do so, you’ve got to make a small percentage of people rich first” Bootstrapping an entire community of content creators to get the flywheel started for a new form of content is something that could only happen in China, and it took a company like Bytedance willing to spend billions to make it happen. Once the growth started, it was explosive: “Over October, Douyin’s daily users doubled from seven to fourteen million; two months later, they reached 30 million.” By 2020, this strategy had worked. Advertising revenue from short form video had estimated to reach 17% of the overall advertising market beating out social media’s 10% and even search engine’s 15% according to SCMP.
Now that TikTok has been growing in the US for a few years, for the first time, American tech giants have something from China to fear.
“We must face the fact that for 96% of people, their needs are so vulgar,” explained Gao Han, a senior UI designer, and ByteDance employee number twenty-two. He confirmed the app’s reputation was well-earned, “Toutiao is of course trashy. It’s all click-bait, all kinds of messy news.”
In the west tech companies like to think of themselves as innovators, pursuing a ‘blue ocean strategy’ where competition can be ignored and innovation is paramount. The culture created by original tech giants Google and Microsoft has led to an entire industry that pulls its punches and operates with cozy margins. The Chinese alternate reality of tech after the establishment of BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent), is the opposite: a red ocean where oxygen has been depleted and sharks abound. Business was conducted like a brutal guerilla war in which developers, engineers, and operations staff worked themselves to death under grueling schedules in which speed of execution was everything.
Bytedance, with its flagship products of Toutiao 今日头条 and Tiktok 抖音 has emerged from the brawl as a winner on a grand scale. With Toutiao, the race to the bottom in eyeballs for newsfeed had been accomplished long ago. With sections filled with nothing but pretty girls (美女) Toutiao’s topic selection was low brow but successful. Since BAT was missing the feed-based company analog to Facebook, there was an opening for Bytedance to succeed. Pony Ma’s "stance at the time towards algorithmic recommendation could be described as, at best, suspicious, at worst, dismissive."
Tiktok itself is arguably the clone of a clone of a clone. Bytedance was only able to emerge from a crowded field by copying the key to retention around the combination of music + short form videos and then pouring gasoline on it quick enough to pull away from the copycats. Adding music to videos produced the same results as adding filters to pictures, effectively transforming smartphone cameras into a karaoke engine. The true irony is that this strategy didn’t first gain traction in China; most students were too busy studying for exams to produce content. So bytedance turned to inorganic growth for both content production and consumption. For content production: “You have to attract immigration, and in order to do so, you’ve got to make a small percentage of people rich first” Bootstrapping an entire community of content creators to get the flywheel started for a new form of content is something that could only happen in China, and it took a company like Bytedance willing to spend billions to make it happen. Once the growth started, it was explosive: “Over October, Douyin’s daily users doubled from seven to fourteen million; two months later, they reached 30 million.” By 2020, this strategy had worked. Advertising revenue from short form video had estimated to reach 17% of the overall advertising market beating out social media’s 10% and even search engine’s 15% according to SCMP.
Now that TikTok has been growing in the US for a few years, for the first time, American tech giants have something from China to fear.
December 26, 2020
Best book on ByteDance/TikTok
Though it's hard to be 100% accurate is ByteDance is constantly evolving but the author has put together app the relevant info you need to understand this high growth giant tech company.
To sum it off, ByteDance is more than just TikTok, you'll be deeply impressed after understanding it's mission and vision.
I'm gonna re-read it again!
Though it's hard to be 100% accurate is ByteDance is constantly evolving but the author has put together app the relevant info you need to understand this high growth giant tech company.
To sum it off, ByteDance is more than just TikTok, you'll be deeply impressed after understanding it's mission and vision.
I'm gonna re-read it again!
December 5, 2020
I don't give book praise easily but Matthew Brennan's book "Attention Factory: The Story of TikTok and China's ByteDance" is an absolute must-read for everyone interested in digitalization e-commerce and the internet in general.
Matthew not only tells the story of ByteDance and TikTok, but also manages to explain almost all internet-based business models in plain and easy to understand English.
I could not put the book down and finished it in 2 days, which indicates Michael Lewis like writing qualities.
If you are looking for one book to understand the state of the internet economy in 2020, don't look any further!
Matthew not only tells the story of ByteDance and TikTok, but also manages to explain almost all internet-based business models in plain and easy to understand English.
I could not put the book down and finished it in 2 days, which indicates Michael Lewis like writing qualities.
If you are looking for one book to understand the state of the internet economy in 2020, don't look any further!
April 16, 2021
just a little too shallow of a book
didn't feel like enough substance, compared to a lot of the other founder stories I've read
didn't feel like enough substance, compared to a lot of the other founder stories I've read
July 29, 2021
Despite the Cambrian explosion of popularity worldwide, this is the only book that charts the unthinkable rise of TikTok and Bytedance. Credits to ARK Invest's podcast for recommending this book.
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