ByteDance Launches Short Video App for Children’s Education
Chinese media outlet Tech Planet reported on Monday that ByteDance recently launched an App called “Xiaoquxing”, which will mimic some of the features of its popular app for adults, including hosting short video content, but the app will be specially designed for children. The development of this app is being led by a subsidiary of Dali Education.
Xiaoquxing will provide videos according to different ages of children, including astronomy, geography and life encyclopedia. The difference with Douyin is that users can’t share and comment on short videos, but can only give thumbs up to “like” a video while also being able to “dislike” a video by selecting the”Not Interested” button.
At present, the app only supports logging in with a mobile phone number. After logging in, users can fill in their personal information, including gender and date of birth. It should be noted that the gender cannot be changed after the setting. In this setting, the maximum age is set to 21 years old, which is to match the corresponding short video content to users of different genders and ages and help them find the videos and subjects they are interested in.
At present, the default limit for users to watch videos in this app is up to 40 minutes on weekends and 30 minutes on other days. This time limit is also in line with the recent protection measures introduced by ByteDance for under age users. Douyin, the short video platform owned by ByteDance, announced on September 18th that it will move all verified users under the age of 14 to the APP’s “kid mode” and will be able to use the application for no more than 40 minutes a day.
Since the introduction of the “double reduction” policy, online education companies have been affected to varying degrees. Layoffs and major changes have become hot issues in the industry. In August, media reported that ByteDance’s Dali Education planned to lay off some of its employees, while those that remain would switch to different products under the ByteDance umbrella. On August 31st, Dali Education launched an App called “Dali Learning HD” in Apple’s App Store. This app has three functions: online study room, homework correction and textbook reading.
