Live.ly

Last updated
Live.ly
Original author(s)
Developer(s)
    • Musical.ly Inc. (2014–2017)
    • ByteDance (2017–2018)
    • TikTok (2018–present)
Initial releaseiOS
July 24, 2016
Android
September 12, 2016
Final release
August 2, 2018;5 years ago (2018-08-02)
Preview release
May 2016;8 years ago (2016-05)
Operating system
Successor TikTok
Type Live streaming
License Proprietary software with terms of use

Live.ly (pronounced "Lively", stylized as live.ly) was a social media live-streaming service headquartered in Shanghai, with an American office in San Francisco, California. The app was launched in July 2016 by Musical.ly during VidCon. [1] On the platform, users streamed live videos for others to watch. [2] Viewers had the ability to send chat messages that the live streamer receives and reads in real time. Additionally, users also had the option to send virtual gifts, which translate into real-life currency for the live streamer. [3] Users could also live-stream to their main Musical.ly account.

Contents

In 2016, Live.ly had over 40 million active users on the platform. [4]

ByteDance Ltd. acquired Musical.ly Inc. on November 10, 2017, and merged it into TikTok on August 2, 2018. The merger with TikTok led to the shutdown of Live.ly in June 2018. [5] [6]

History

Founding

In August 2014, Musical.ly was launched, managed, and published by Musical.ly Inc. The app followed the premise of similar video-sharing platforms, notably Vine. [7] It gained popularity mostly through teenage users. In June 2016, Musical.ly announced an active user base of roughly 90 million. [8]

In May 2016, Musical.ly announced the launch of Live.ly as a competitor to other social media platforms that were releasing live streaming services. Musical.ly initiated beta testing of the platform in the same month. Subsequently, Live.ly was published onto the iTunes Store in late June 2016, where it quickly gained popularity despite having no sponsors for the app. [1]

On July 24, 2016, Musical.ly officially released Live.ly globally at VidCon, further attracting users and gaining popularity. [1]

Growth

Given Musical.ly's significant user base of roughly 90 million at the time, the launch of Live.ly in May 2016 tapped into this existing population, attracting users to its live streaming platform as a natural extension of the Musical.ly experience.

By October 2016, Live.ly had surpassed Twitter's Periscope iOS app, [9] amassing approximately 40 million active users. According to Variety, the top 10 Live.ly accounts collectively earned US$46,000 in just a two-week period from virtual gifts that users had the ability to send. [10]

Merger into TikTok

In June 2018, two years after its release, Live.ly was removed from all app stores it was originally distributed on due to its merger with TikTok. [5] ByteDance, the company that acquired Musical.ly and Live.ly, announced that Live.ly and Musical.ly would merge into one app. This unified app would allow users to watch videos and view live streams seamlessly. [11]

On August 2, 2018, Live.ly was merged with TikTok[ citation needed ], along with its counterpart Musical.ly, following ByteDance's acquisition for a reported US$1 billion. [11] After Live.ly's shutdown, users were directed to a comparable live-streaming platform, LiveMe. [12]

Criticism and controversies

Paul Zimmer accusations

Image of Becker in December 2020. Troy Becker (cropped).jpg
Image of Becker in December 2020.

In April 2017, Internet personality Paul Zimmer (Troy Becker) faced accusations of exploiting his young fans financially by promising them shout outs and personal direct messages. However, Zimmer frequently neglected to fulfill these promises, often ignoring requests or declining to give shoutouts. The hashtag #BanPaulZimmer quickly gained traction on Musical.ly and Live.ly in response to Zimmer's behavior. Consequently, Zimmer deleted all videos where he made such promises to fans and took an 18-month hiatus from social media. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

Video clips refer to mostly short videos, which are usually silly jokes and funny clips, often from movies or entertainment videos such as those on YouTube. Short videos on TikTok and YouTube often influence popular culture and internet trends. Such clips are usually taken out of context and have many gags in them. Sometimes they can be used to attract the public to the user's other accounts or their long-form videos. The term is also used more loosely to mean any video program, including a full program, uploaded onto a website or other medium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vine (service)</span> Defunct American social network for short videos

Vine was an American short-form video hosting service where users could share up to 10-second-long looping video clips. It was originally launched on January 24, 2013, by Vine Labs, Inc and Big Human. Bought by Twitter, Inc. in 2012 before its launch, the service was shut down on January 17, 2017, and the app was discontinued a few months later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dubsmash</span> American video sharing social media service

Dubsmash was a video sharing social media service application for iOS and Android.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Periscope (service)</span> American live video streaming app

Periscope was an American live video streaming app for Android and iOS developed by Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein and acquired by Twitter, Inc. before its launch in March 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical.ly</span> Chinese social media service, now TikTok

Musical.ly was a social media service headquartered in Shanghai with an American office in Santa Monica, California, on which platform users created and shared short lip-sync videos. The first prototype was released in April 2014, and then after that, the official version was launched in August 2014. Through the app, users could create 15-second to 1-minute lip-syncing music videos and choose sound tracks to accompany, use different speed options and add pre-set filters and effects. The app also allowed users to browse popular "musers", content, trending songs, sounds and hashtags, and uniquely interact with their fans.

This page is a timeline of social media. Major launches, milestones, and other major events are included.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ByteDance</span> Chinese internet technology company

ByteDance Ltd. is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ZEE5</span> Indian video on demand service run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises

ZEE5 is an Indian subscription video on demand and over-the-top streaming service, run by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages. The ZEE5 mobile app is available on Web, Android, iOS, Smart TVs, among other devices. ZEE5 claimed 56 million monthly active users in December 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TikTok</span> Video-focused social media platform

TikTok, whose mainland Chinese counterpart is Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from three seconds to 10 minutes. It can be accessed with a smart phone app.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lasso (video sharing app)</span> Video sharing app by Facebook

Lasso was a short-video sharing app by Facebook.

Zhang Yiming is a Chinese internet entrepreneur. He founded ByteDance in 2012, developed the news aggregator Toutiao and the video sharing platform Douyin. As of March 2024, Zhang's personal wealth was estimated at US$40.2 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the second-richest person in China, after Zhong Shanshan. On November 4, 2021, Zhang stepped down as CEO of ByteDance, completing a leadership handover announced in May 2021. According to Reuters, Zhang maintains over 50 percent of ByteDance's voting rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huddles (app)</span> Video-sharing application

Huddles was an American short-form video hosting service and social network where users could create looping videos that are between 2–16 seconds long. It was created by a team led by Dom Hofmann as a successor to Vine, which Hofmann co-founded, until the project was sold to Clash App, Inc. and subsequently renamed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Triller (app)</span> American social networking service

Triller is an American video-sharing social networking service. The service allows users to create and share short-form videos, including videos set to, or automatically synchronized to music using artificial intelligence technology. Triller was released for iOS and Android in 2015, and initially operated as a video editing app before adding social networking features.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Zimmer (internet personality)</span> Internet personality (born 1995)

Troy Becker, previously known by the pseudonym Paul Zimmer, is an actor and internet personality. Under the Zimmer name, he was a Musical.ly personality who was known for posting "a fairly innocuous if very corny brand on the app, doing things like making 'thirst trap' videos of himself lip-syncing to R&B songs and flashing his abs with captions like 'Happy Black History Month :)'." However, Zimmer later became a controversial figure after he was accused of financially exploiting his young fans on Musical.ly's sister app, Live.ly, and trying to create a false identity for himself as a minor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Trump–TikTok controversy</span> 2020–2021 event

In 2020, the United States government announced that it was considering banning the Chinese social media platform TikTok upon a request from then-president Donald Trump, who viewed the app as a national security threat. The result was that TikTok owner ByteDance—which initially planned on selling a small portion of TikTok to an American company—agreed to divest TikTok to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries where restrictions are also being considered due to privacy concerns, which themselves are mostly related to its ownership by a firm based in China.

Josh is a video-sharing social networking service, owned by VerSe Innovation – an Indian technology company based in Bangalore, India. Josh is an Indian short video app that was launched in immediately after the Indian Government banned TikTok and other Chinese apps in June 2020. The founders of the platform have promoted the app as the “Instagram for Bharat” referring to their focus on the Indian audience that speaks its own regional and state languages. Josh was among the top 10 most downloaded apps social and entertainment apps in India of 2021 and had 150 million monthly active users as per April 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YouTube Shorts</span> Reel sharing platform within Youtube

YouTube Shorts is the short-form section of the American video-sharing site YouTube. Shorts focuses on vertical videos that are less than 60 seconds of duration and various features for user interaction. As of May 2024, Shorts have collectively earned over 5 trillion views since the platform was made available to the public on July 13, 2021, which include video views that pre-date the YouTube Shorts feature. Creators earn money based on the amount of views they receive, or through ad revenue. The increased popularity of YouTube Shorts has led to concerns about addiction for teenagers.

TikTok Music is a music streaming app owned by ByteDance, first launched in July 2023. This service allows users to listen to, download and share songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TikTok Shop</span> E-commerce feature on TikTok

TikTok Shop is an e-commerce feature of the video hosting service TikTok. Launched in November 2022, the feature enables users interested in starting a business and generating income to upload their curated products on TikTok for others to discover. Users have the option to purchase these products, which are available for a price.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wallenstein, Andrew (June 24, 2016). "Musical.ly May Be the Spoiler in Livestream Race with Launch of Live.ly". Variety. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved June 24, 2016.
  2. Roof, Katie (27 May 2016). "Musical.ly launches live.ly for live streaming". TechCrunch . Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  3. Perez, Sarah (13 June 2018). "Musical.ly kills its standalone live-streaming app Live.ly". TechCrunch . Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  4. Manavis, Sarah (15 May 2018). "Live.ly is the latest place for adults to extract money from kids online". New Statesman . Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  5. 1 2 Spangler, Todd (13 June 2018). "Musical.ly Shuts Down Live.ly, Will Merge Live-Streaming Into Main App". Variety (magazine) . Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  6. Kundu, Kishalaya (August 2, 2018). "Musical.ly App To Be Shut Down, Users Will Be Migrated to TikTok". Beebom. Archived from the original on October 5, 2019. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  7. Carson, Biz (28 May 2016). "How a failed education startup turned into Musical.ly, the most popular app you've probably never heard of". Business Insider . Retrieved 4 May 2024.
  8. Dan Rys (June 29, 2016). "Fresh Off a Big Funding Round, Musical.ly Signs Its First Major Label Deal with Warner Music". Billboard. Archived from the original on August 13, 2017. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  9. Spangler, Todd (30 September 2016). "Musical.ly's Live.ly Is Now Bigger Than Twitter's Periscope on iOS (Study)". Variety . Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  10. Spangler, Todd (31 October 2016). "Musical.ly Live-Streaming Stars Are Earning Thousands of Dollars From Adoring Fans". Variety . Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  11. 1 2 Lin, Liza; Winkler, Rolfe (November 9, 2017). "Social-Media App Musical.ly Is Acquired for as Much as $1 Billion". The Wall Street Journal . New York City. Archived from the original on June 13, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2017.
  12. Perez, Sarah (23 July 2018). "Musical.ly's shutdown of Live.ly was contractually obligated". TechCrunch . Retrieved 6 May 2024.
  13. Manavis, Sarah (8 January 2020). "The strange case of Paul Zimmer, the influencer who came back as a different person". New Statesman . Archived from the original on 16 October 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2020.