What is Triller and can it replace TikTok?

The answer is...

… no. Triller is not going to replace TikTok.

Triller is a social video platform founded by David Lieberman in 2015 - they recently raised $28M in October 2019. They’re funded by Warner Music, Sony Music, Universal Music, etc. and has more of a music/artists focus. With TikTok facing rumors of getting banned, I have seen more and more TikTok’ers and Instagram influencer types shifting over to Triller.

Let’s breakdown what Triller is doing. This is what Triller looks like:

compared to TikTok’s home page:

You’ll notice a few things right off the bat. The bottom nav menu’s are virtually identical. Triller has Music, Search, Create, Notifications, and Profile. TikTok has Home, Discover, Create, Inbox, and Me. Both let you follow, heart, comment, and

TikTok has an additional share since you can share the videos to those without the app. Triller has this feature too, but you have to tap the three dot icon, and you see a menu with “Report” and “Copy Share URL.”

Right off the bat, it’s clear that Triller is following what we call “an open-source PRD.” See what the competitor is doing, and basically replicate it. I’m not saying their goal was to copy TikTok - in fact maybe the opposite happened - but since TikTok is the bigger app, people who use Triller are going to compare and judge that it is a TikTok clone.

So if you’re perceived as a clone, you need something to stand out. Unfortunately, most of the screens between TikTok and Triller are identical. The swiping/discovery mechanism is similar with hashtags, challenges, and vertical swipe to scroll through the feed. Triller, on initial usage, seems to have much larger/bigger creators and also more music focused ones. You also see these sponsored creators, which makes me think that Triller is lacking in content if they have to pay people to create vids:

(Griffin Johnson is a famous TikTok’er who was in a relationship with fellow TikTok’er Dixie D’amelio. They broke-up recently, allegedly due to infidelity. The social media storm is still raging, so this is probably not the guy you want repping your brand)

Triller tries hard to get you to sign-up for the service. Tapping on the Notification icon or Profile icon both trigger a page where you can sign-in, with the value prop being “see your friends activity” or “post your best Trillers”:

I think there’s too many sign-in options here. Ideally Facebook/IG + Phone number would be the main ones. If the value prop is “see your friend’s activity,” then you’ll have some friends signing in with Twitter, others Snap, others Email, and the result is that you see way less of your friends unless you’ve added them everywhere.

Triller seems eager to push you to follow your friends. Clicking on the “Following” tab in the top right or the icon next to it both trigger a prompt to sign-in and follow your friends:

Note that there is actually a double prompt here. If you tap “following,” you’ll see the Sign up/log in page. If you then click the little guy icon with the plus sign next to following, then you get this Sign-in overlay. The overlay can appear on any page, but on this page it looks broken/unfinished because you’re showing the same prompt twice and covering up one with the other.

Moreover, TikTok is interesting in that people engage with content from people they don’t know. It’s not just influencers but a lot of randos like Excel Girl who create good content. If a friend linked you to Triller, you might look up their profile and that would be a good time to prompt log-in to connect. On initial usage, there really isn’t much point to sign-in to follow unless you know you like the content.

This is what you see if you tap the Profile/Person icon). Clicking on the gear leads to the settings:

The settings seem very bare bones here/iOS defaults. It’s not explained what Selfie Mirror is. I assumed it’s some effect to boost lighting/improve selfie quality, but after toggling it I couldn’t tell the difference. The pink used on this page is different from the pink used on the profile page. A detail like that may seem irrelevant, but it tells me that they don’t have a strong design standard, or this page was put together and forgotten, or something else happened. “Polish,” or lack thereof, tells you a lot about how a team operates and builds a product.

Compare it with TikTok’s settings:

It’s largely the same info, but there’s a clean, simple design that is consistent with the rest of TikTok.

Moving on to the search/discover flow. Triller splits them into two screens:

(Search icon)

The search page has both search and discover, which is just like TikTok:

Triller does have a “Music” tab which is anchored on music discovery:

I think this is the most notably different thing between Triller and TikTok. Triller dedicates an entire tab to discovering music/songs - some of these were launched on Triller. Tapping in lets you see popular and recent videos for consumption and inspiration if you want to make your own video:

It’s clear that Triller has a music focus. They dedicate a top tab (Following, Music, Social) and a bottom nav button (Music) to discovering music. People like Chance the Rapper have launched music on Triller. The Hiphop community in particular has used Triller as a launch platform in the past. Going forward, it looks like they’re trying to become more like TikTok, so I wonder if that music focus will shift away and be more social/general.

So far it’s obvious that Triller and TikTok might as well be interchangeable. TikTok is much better, however, in small creator discovery and small creator creation. The concept of “challenges” is much more established, and there are easy templates to follow. Triller has the same thing with challenges and hashtags for discovery, but most of their feed content features way bigger creators. With TikTok, you can scroll and see people who have 5 views or 10 followers or 200 followers and that’s encouragement that “you belong, you can create here and get discovered.” I don’t see any indication that Triller is enabling that.

Speaking of creation, the camera/create flow is identical. Triller:

and TikTok:

Triller has two different flows for music or social video. TikTok just adds “sounds” to the top of their camera editor. Triller also have a 1x and 3x zoom feature, but otherwise the flows are basically the same. I looked through the filters and there are standard overlays and some light segmentation effects, but none of the “AI” that other press articles have talked about. It’s fine, but it’s equivalent to TikTok.

Overall, I see Triller as a “me too” app - they have a music focus but otherwise it’s an identical app. Moreover, TikTok is wildly successful because it’s easy for individuals to create and get traffic - there is no indication that Triller enables that. The video feed in a social video app is critical because it shows you who’s on the platform and what kind of content is “good” and “fun.” And if you can’t enable large-scale creation, then you end up with a YouTube type network which is top-heavy with big creators.

I want to repeat this last point - enabling small creators is critical. That’s because people who create are sticky - they spend more time on the platform, come up with new things, tell their friends, and build a social network. A lot of people left Instagram for TikTok because they were getting traffic on TikTok and they were not getting it on Instagram. If Triller can’t support discovery for small creators, then people are not going to stick to the platform and they certainly won’t displace TikTok.

Yes short-form vertical video is compelling, but Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc. all have plays here, so you need something to stand out. That just doesn’t exist for Triller. Even if TikTok was banned in the US, I don’t foresee people switching over in droves. They can polish the app and fix the product issues, but I think Triller will need to change their discovery/creator approach or come up with something brand new to win in this market.