The top management of Big G doesn't want to miss yet another train on the social front and immediately wants to buy TikTok's rival. The scenario
TikTok is also scary for Google, which would be negotiating the acquisition of Firework to counter the rise of the Chinese social based on very short videos.
The Wall Street Journal reports that nothing has been decided yet but that the Google-Fireworks negotiation is there, and it's also at the highest levels.
To deal with the owners of Firework, startup of Redwood City in California with just one year of activity behind, would have been called the executives of YouTube. Few days ago the news has been leaked that Mark Zuckerberg himself has recently asked his executives to contrast the rise of TikTok, while it would seem that Firework is also interested in Weibo, the company that manages the homonymous social platform widespread in China. The reason for all this interest in Firework is twofold: Firework has reached one million users in less than six months and, at the moment, seems to be the most credible option to compete with TikTok.
What is Firework
Firework defines itself as a social mobile TV. It works by sharing very short, 30-second videos. That seems few, but in reality it's twice as long as the 15 seconds of the TikTok videos. From a technical point of view, Firework stands out for the integration of Reveal technology, which allows the phone to be rotated while the video is running, keeping it full-screen.
Like its Chinese competitor, Firework has managed to go viral among young people thanks to spontaneous videos shot and shared by users, but it has already planned a paid Creator Program to attract creatives as well as a Partner Program for advertising investors. Currently Firework has an estimated value of 100 million dollars, a few pennies for Google but also for ByteDance, owner of TikTok, which has a market value of about 75 billion dollars.
Facebook bets on Lasso
If Google is thinking, like Weibo, to buy Firework to take away the audience to TikTok, Facebook seems instead willing to counter it by playing at home. With the Lasso application, which today is integrated with Facebook and perhaps one day could be integrated with Instagram, it's possible to create and share short videos, add effects and a soundtrack drawing from a vast library included in the app. Zuckerberg has made it clear to his employees that the group needs to put all its eggs in this app basket, especially in countries where TikTok is not yet widespread.