Regardless of whether TikTok continues to be available in the US, some of the most influential companies on the internet are lining up to compete with it. The latest is social news aggregation site Reddit, which has just acquired video sharing service Dubsmash.
Dubsmash was initially founded back in 2014 in Germany, but moved to New York in 2016. It operates in the same space as TikTok, offering a way to record short videos and share them with others. In a Medium blog post, Dubsmash said, “By joining forces with Reddit, we expand our ability to serve the creators that represent the lifeblood of Dubsmash, helping them connect, share, and deepen their impact on culture. We are excited to accelerate Reddit’s focus on video, bringing our tools and technology to their passionate, rapidly-growing user base and sparking evermore forms of creation.”
“Both Reddit and Dubsmash share a deep rooted respect for how communities come together,” said Steve Huffman, CEO, Reddit. “Dubsmash elevates under-represented creators, while Reddit fosters a sense of community and belonging across thousands of different topics and passions. It’s clear that our missions closely align and that our community-focused platforms can coexist and grow as we learn from each other.”
Dubsmash will continue to be offered as a separate platform and retains its name, but Reddit intends to integrate “Dubsmash’s innovative video creation tools” into Reddit, so the community can use them directly on the site. Since introducing native video in 2017, Reddit says, “we’ve seen tremendous growth and organic community adoption of video as it has become a significant part of how redditors create and connect.” With that in mind, the Dubsmash acquisition makes a lot of sense to aid that momentum.
