TikTok Now is the latest BeReal knockoff
TikTok is the latest app to add a dual camera feature, hoping to tap in to the surging popularity of BeReal.
In a blog post today, TikTok announced a new feature called Now, which will send users daily notifications to capture a picture or video using their front and back cameras.
“We’re expanding our suite of creation tools as we continue to foster authentic and spontaneous connections on TikTok,” the company says in the post. In other words: y’all really seem to like accidentally posting company secrets while you work from home on that other app. What if you did it on TikTok, too?
In images shared by TikTok, the new feature has its own dedicated tab right next to the home button at the bottom of the app. Just like BeReal, users have to post their own moment-in-time shot to see what friends have shared, and there’s a timeframe in which your post is “on time.” But unlike BeReal, TikTok is adding the ability to post 10-second videos in addition to still images.
The company says it’s experimenting with the feature over the coming weeks. In the US, TikTok Now will be available in the main app. In other regions of the world, TikTok Now may become a separate app.
Other platforms have been working on their own versions of BeReal — which itself has been accused of copying a different short-lived app. App sleuths discovered IG Candid, Instagram’s version that the company said was an internal prototype that wasn’t being tested externally. Snapchat’s dual camera feature — which takes multiple shots but doesn’t send timed notifications — was announced back in April and was finally introduced in late August.
TikTok trying to capitalize on BeReal’s popularity shouldn’t be shocking — the cycle of tech platforms ripping each other off or adding similar features is never-ending. The most surprising part of TikTok adding this, perhaps, is that it managed to beat Instagram to the punch.
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