ByteDance Launches Short Video-based Messaging App Duoshan

China’s tech unicorn ByteDance, today announced the launch of Duoshan, a video-based social messaging app in Beijing.

Duoshan, which means “many flashes” in Chinese, is designed in a way that encourages users to share moments with their family and friends through videos.

“We are seeing more and more TikTok users share their videos through other social media platforms and channels. With the launch of Duoshan, we are creating our first video-based social messaging app to allow users to share their creativity and interact directly with their family and friends,” said Zhang Nan, the president of TikTok.

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Aimed at providing stress-free environments for users to share their experiences, Duoshan doesn’t feature public likes and comments. Likes and comments will be sent through messages directly to the users by their friends. Short videos are also only available for 72 hours and will then disappear.

“Communicating through videos will provide our users with a completely new experience that cannot be delivered through text, voice, or images. We believe Duoshan will play a key role in setting the new trend for visual communication,” said Xu Luran, the product head of Duoshan.

Duoshan’s platform also includes an emoji recommendation feature that provides a large pool of fun emojis according to text inputs, allowing users to easily choose their preferred emoji and post them immediately.

ByteDance is now the world’s most valuable startup. Having just closed a $3 billion funding led by Softbank, the company is currently valued at $75 billion. ByteDance is challenging Tencent in many areas in the past few years, and is now making aggressive advances in social media with Duoshan’s launch.