ByteDance Launches New Music App for Lower Markets
ByteDance is accelerating its layout in the music field. Just after launching the app “Soda Music” in the first half of the year, it recently quietly launched another app called “Tomato Music,” which is designed more for small-town and rural markets, Tech Planet reported on November 15.
Tomato Music is more like QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music in terms of its use and operation. Different from the form of member payment for Soda Music, Tomato Music focuses on free listening, with more complete functions. VIPs can enjoy audiobooks indefinitely without any advertisements by paying 25 yuan per month.
In terms of playing features, users of Tomato Music can switch to another song like watching short videos on Douyin.
Tomato Music has classic songs, pieces that are popular on Douyin and suitable for square dancing. The function of “making money by listening to songs” is retained, showing that the target users of Tomato Music are online novel lovers, middle-aged and elderly people and those living in small towns and rural areas.
ByteDance will also launch a new music label called “YO CAP” to sell music products, and its music merchandise brand “Emotif” is now selling perfume and frisbees, deepening exploration of specific music fields.
With the liberalization of exclusive music copyright in China, Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), NetEase Cloud Music, and various new players have emerged on online music platforms, including ByteDance. At present, ByteDance has built a music ecology integrating music copyright management, music distribution, online music playing platforms, online audio and music merchandise products.
Since 2019, ByteDance began to build its own music station called ByteMusic. Later, with the popularity of Douyin, the music demand of merchants in the short video field increased. Therefore, paid creation of songs was introduced into ByteDance’s marketing service platform, which was the first time that ByteDance used music for business.
SEE ALSO: ByteDance Initiates Testing of First Music App
With Douyin gradually serving as the origin of popular music, ByteDance has successively launched music searching, music lists and karaoke functions within the app.
In mid-2021, ByteDance upgraded the priority of music in its business strategy. At the same time, a music distribution management platform and Soda Music received investment.
As a new player in the field, ByteDance still needs to solve some challenges. On the one hand, the music copyright of Douyin is still less than TME and NetEase Cloud Music. On the other hand, Soda Music adopts the member payment system, and how to make users take the initiative to pay for it is the next topic that needs to be considered.
