Short video-making apps are getting more popular now in India and other markets. Chinese app TikTok was the trendsetter in making these videos. Now TikTok got an Indian rival “Mitron” which released in the last month got popularity around the country with 5 million downloads on Google PlayStore.
Mitron is a short video-making app developed by an IIT Roorkee student Shivank Agarwal, works similar to that of TikTok. Mitron helps the user to create 15-second video content which can be humorous or to show their talent. The app has a similar User Interface as that of TikTok and will be a direct rival to it. Currently, Mitron is available only in Google PlayStore and not available in Apple Appstore. Reviews and ratings of Mitron soared high in PlayStore.
TikTok is a Chinese video making app owned by ByteDance, an Internet technology company based in Beijing. The app became very much popular in the world market that crossed 2 billion downloads and overtook Facebook and Messenger as the world’s second most downloaded app after popular social media platform WhatsApp. In order to compete with the Chinese app, Facebook introduced the ‘Lasso’ app and ‘Collab’ app which are now limited to iOS mobile platform. Google also launched an experimental social video sharing app named ‘Tangi’ to rival TikTok. Other video sharing platforms competing against Tiktok includes MadLipz, VMate, Sharechat, Giphy etc.
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s “Vocal for local” initiative increased the publicity of Indian rivals of TikTok. Mitron, Bolo Indya and Roposo are the Indian competitors of TikTok. Numerous Start-Ups are now working to develop the Indian versions of WhatsApp, Zoom and TikTok as a part of this “Vocal for Local” initiative.
TikTok is facing so many issues related to its operation around the world. Earlier a lawsuit was filed against it in the US accused of illegally and secretly taking personally identifiable user data to Chinese servers. It was also accused of stealing videos of the users without their consent. In India, it faced controversies and was banned by Madras high court in April 2019 for three months. Since a Chinese app, TikTok has a suspicious look from the US and its counterparts.
