Over the previous few years, TikTok has been laborious at work making an attempt to introduce new options in an try and not solely keep its dominant place within the short-form video market but in addition to achieve some market share within the search business. Now, consistent with these efforts, TikTok has introduced a brand new search widget for iPhone and Android customers, making it simple to entry the platform’s search functionalities.
This transfer aligns with a advertising marketing campaign earlier this yr within the UK, the place the corporate marketed itself as a search engine aimed toward catering to the altering patterns in on-line content material discovery. It's because immersive experiences provided by platforms like TikTok and Instagram are actually gaining extra significance over conventional keyword-based searches.
Talking on this shift, Google’s Senior Vice President, Prabhakar Raghavan, acknowledged, “We continue to learn, time and again, that new web customers don’t have the expectations and the mindset that now we have change into accustomed to. These customers don’t are likely to sort in key phrases however slightly look to find content material in new, extra immersive methods. In our research, virtually 40% of younger folks, when on the lookout for a spot for lunch, don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.”
Due to this fact, so as to add the search widget, iOS customers can long-press on the house display, faucet the “+” icon, seek for TikTok, discover the “Search” widget, and faucet “Add Widget.” Alternatively, Android customers can discover the brand new widget by long-pressing on the house display, tapping on Widgets, and looking for TikTok.
The growing affect of TikTok
Whereas the brand new search widget is a step in the suitable course for TikTok to develop as a search platform, specialists and lawmakers have raised their issues concerning the firm’s affect, particularly within the UK, the place many younger adults are actually contemplating TikTok as a information supply. Furthermore, latest experiences of a former ByteDance worker claiming that the Chinese language Communist Celebration retains a watchful eye on the platform and makes use of it as a propaganda machine and the continued FBI investigation on TikTok spying on US journalists have added to the issues of UK lawmakers.