TikTok owner ByteDance kills news aggregator app TopBuzz
- TopBuzz, which used machine-learning technology similar to TikTok’s to help recommend content to users, was launched in 2015
- The move to shut down TopBuzz shows how ByteDance has struggled to crack the overseas news app market
ByteDance, parent company of popular short video app TikTok, has closed its artificial intelligence-enabled news aggregator app TopBuzz, which had failed to capture a vast international audience in five years of operation.
“We are proud of the work that we accomplished with TopBuzz, but have determined that other areas of the business should be our priority going forward,” a ByteDance representative said on Friday in a statement sent via WeChat. The app’s Japanese version, however, was still on Google Play as of Friday.
TopBuzz, which used machine-learning technology similar to TikTok’s to help recommend content to users, was launched by ByteDance in the overseas market in 2015. It was designed as the international version of Chinese news aggregator app Jinri Toutiao, which was the start-up’s first major hit before gaining a wider audience with short video app Douyin on the mainland and its international counterpart TikTok around the world.
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TopBuzz had a total of 20,000 downloads globally in April, according to data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower.