TikTok has a new feature, visual search engines! This feature is currently still in the beta phase, and only available on the Chinese version of the app.
What’s TikTok ?
Launched in September of 2016 TikTok is a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15-second videos, on any topic. TikTok maintains a separate app for the Chinese market, known as Duyin, which has over 300 million active monthly users.
TikTok is often referred to as a “lip-syncing” app, which makes it sound like it’s some online karaoke experience. But a closer comparison would be Vine, Twitter’s still sorely missed short-form video app whose content lives on as YouTube compilations. The interface is similar to Snapchat, with the ability to add sounds and song snippets from TikTok’s. There are also plenty of special effect options, filters, and an option to add videos you’ve created directly from your phone.
Chinese TikTok has a new feature, an in-video search. Search someone’s face to find more videos of them. Search in-video products or clothes and buy directly!
Users on TikTok (or Douyin in Chinese) can now press the “Search” button mid-video.
Drag a rectangle around the target area, and instantly perform a visual search for the area’s contents.
If you select someone’s face, the app will show you a list of other videos that they appear in. If you select a shirt, the app will do its best to locate that shirt on an e-commerce site.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen “visual search engines”.
Google let you search with a picture that appears on the internet.
Taobao (Chinese online marketplace) let user upload a picture in order to search for a product.
Nevertheless, TikTok’s is the first to propose the capabilities by taking the viewer directly from the video to a deeper destination of content and purchase !!
The question is… when Facebook or Instagram will think about it?