TikTok targeting Twitter (X) with new text features and also introduces a new Aussie music streaming trial

Twitter is dying, a lot slower than we first thought, but its light is slowly being snuffed out and the buzzards are circling, looking to take their own market share of the social media landscape. One such company looking to move into a space soon to be left by X (or is it Twitter this week?) is TikTok.

Yes, TikTok has this week added text posts as a new format for users to share their thoughts and creations. Not only is there a new text format for posts but TikTok is also promising well-known features such as location, comments, stickers, tags and hashtags and more in a bid to lure some of the Twitter users leaving in droves over to their platform.

This way users can also express themselves in the form of text alongside the usual video format of TikTok.

With Twitter’s new owner making decisions on a whim, and often seemingly without any sane reason, TikTok and others could well lure folks away even if Twitter do survive.

TikTok Music

TikTok has also recently launched a streaming music service in Brazil and Indonesia and has now launched the service in Australia alongside Mexico and Singapore in a closed beta form to a “group of volunteer users.” Those involved in the beta test will get a three-month free trial of their subscription-only music service.

“TikTok Music is a new kind of music service that combines the power of music discovery on TikTok with a music streaming service offering millions of tracks from thousands of artists,” a TikTok spokesperson said, adding that the company “will have more news to share on the launch of TikTok Music in the coming months.”

The catalogue of TikTok Music in those countries is continually expanding with agreements already signed with Warner Recorded Music and Warner Chappell Music, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and WMG.

TikTok has Spotify in their sights according to the WSJ and given the sheer number of users they already have on plain old social media TikTok that ambition is not out of the realms of possibility.

How long TikTok Music will stay in closed beta is unknown and it seems that they are very slowly letting users into the beta test to test out the service. There doesn’t seem to be a way to jump the queue and trigger an invite but if you find one drop us an email and let us know.