According to Zuckerberg, Instagram should look more like TikTok in order not to lose appeal to younger people. That's why Lasso has been developed
If copying Instagram's stories managed to take out Snapchat, why not try again with TikTok's video clips? This is the reasoning that they are doing in recent weeks in Menlo Park, or so it seems listening to the two audio files that has just published The Verge.
They are recordings of two internal meetings at Facebook, during which Mark Zuckerberg explains to his executives the future strategies of the group and talks a bit 'of everything, with much less hair on the tongue than when he was forced to answer questions from the authorities in the U.S. and EU. Zuckerberg, among many other things, also says that it is necessary to counter the rise of the Chinese app TikTok (formerly Musica.ly), now so popular among the very young, and that it is necessary to do so by inserting into Instagram its features most loved by users. Only in this way, explains Zuckerberg, will it be possible to stop the rise of TikTok, which, by the Facebook CEO's own admission, is a very formidable competitor.
Instagram will copy TikTok
Zuckerberg's plan is simple: insert into Instragram, which is currently the group's most youthful platform, some of TikTok's features such as short music videos, in which young users shoot themselves with the smartphone's selfie cam and then add a background sound, creating a sort of small video story with music. All this will be done through an app external to Instagram, already developed by the group, called "Lasso".
Zuckerberg also specifies that this strategy will be carried out mainly in markets where TikTok is not yet widespread, such as Mexico, leaving alone initially the markets where the competing app is already strong, such as those in Asia.
The first real Chinese competitor
Interesting also to note that, in the stolen audio, we clearly hear Mark Zuckerberg say that TikTok is a fearsome competitor because it is the first Chinese service that really succeeds abroad: "TikTok is really the first product created by one of the Chinese giants that is working quite well around the world - explains the Facebook founder to his employees - It's starting to work well in the United States, especially among young people. It's growing very fast in India. I think it has already surpassed Instagram in India in terms of scale. So yes, it's a very interesting phenomenon."