TikTok owner ByteDance has launched a stand-alone app in China to search for short video content published on Douyin, bringing it into closer competition with internet search giant Baidu.
Douyin Search, which draws on the popularity of the Chinese version of TikTok, became available for download on various domestic Android app stores this week. The app was not available on Apple’s App Store as of Thursday.
The app’s homepage has a search bar at the top, followed by a few trending topics. The ones on Thursday afternoon contained “the battle scenes of Black Myth: Wukong”, referring to the popular Chinese video game released this week, and “Eric Tsang Chi-wai achieved 100 million sales in three hours of live commerce”, referring to the Hong Kong actor who sold wares during a live-streamed shopping event on Douyin a day earlier.
Developed by Beijing Douyin Technology, the app markets itself as “real and reliable”, offering “strong search and accurate recommendations” from the short video platform Douyin. The app is also powered by ByteDance’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based recommendation system.
Below the search bar are two columns of curated short videos. The next tab presents a page that is very similar to the homepage of Douyin or TikTok, allowing users to swipe through videos.
This is ByteDance’s fifth crack at building a search app, after Toutiao Search, Toutiao Search Lite, Wukong Search and Shandian Search. Only Toutiao Search Lite is still available to download from major app stores. The main Toutiao Search app was revamped into the content community Youshi, and Wukong Search became an AI assistant.
Douyin Search is the latest in a string of attempts from tech giants to leverage their dominance in specific domains to challenge Baidu’s hold over search.
Despite recent controversies, Baidu has maintained its tight grip on internet search in China. It had a 52 per cent market share as of July, according to StatCounter, a web traffic analytics firm. It was followed by Microsoft’s Bing, 360 Search and Sogou at 32, 7 and 4 per cent, respectively.
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