Let us take you back to the days, in 2014-15, when Dubsmash and Musical·ly were blowing up as apps for people who wanted to lip-sync and/or dance to music in short videos.
Musical·ly (obligatory reminder: nothing to do with us) went on to be acquired by ByteDance and after being merged with TikTok grew to more than one billion active users. Dubsmash did not, although it wasn’t a failure: after a 2019 pivot it was doing more than 1bn monthly video views in early 2020, before being acquired late that year by internet firm Reddit.
The deal always looked like a long-term play to do more with video on Reddit itself though, and here’s the inevitable postscript: Dubsmash is shutting down in February 2022. “Since joining, the Dubsmash team has been working to integrate their innovative video creation tools into Reddit – with a goal of empowering Reddit’s own creators to express themselves in original ways that are authentic to our communities,” Reddit announced this week, noting that this integration has already seen nearly 70% growth in video hours on Reddit in 2021.
Music Ally’s next Learn Live webinar will help you understand what’s required for artists to thrive in new international markets!