- Los Angeles-based music video social app Triller announced it has hit over 250 million downloads and now has 65 million users
Triller is a Los Angeles-based music video social app that is backed by several celebrities. And it has been gaining some traction in recent months. Triller has also been often compared to TikTok due to its similar user interface.
Triller co-owner and Hollywood producer Ryan Kavanaugh told CNBC that the company views it as an “adult version” of TikTok.
“We look at (TikTok) like a stepping stone to Triller,” Kavanaugh added.
Due to President Trump’s threat to ban TikTok in the U.S. due to privacy concerns, a number of the top TikTok users moved their content over to Triller. And in the past few days, Triller was downloaded over 35 million times.
So far, the app was downloaded over 250 million times worldwide, and about 65 million active users. This is a major jump from the 13 million active monthly users and 60 million total downloads as of October 2019.
Originally, Triller did not see itself as being competitive against TikTok. Triller started out as a short music video app for users to sing along the songs of musicians. Often times, the musicians post their own songs and issue challenges for users to sing along to their new music. In 2016, the app added several social components to it by allowing users to follow others and be followed.
“We have a big sign on our wall in the office that says, ‘TikTok is for kids,’” noted Kavanaugh in the CNBC interview. Kavanaugh said that the sign is meant to be a reminder to staff that it wants to be different from TikTok.
Kavanaugh also runs a company called Proxima Media. Proxima Media produced films like The Fast and the Furious and Immortals. And it bought a majority stake in Triller last year for an undisclosed amount.
“Our whole thing is like, TikTok trains the audience that we don’t want to have, which is the 8- to 14-year-old audience,” Kavanaugh commented.
Triller’s minimum age to sign up for the app is 12.
Triller is avoiding younger audiences due to online child privacy laws that protect children under age 13 from companies collecting personal information without parental consent.
The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Justice Department have reportedly been looking into allegations that TikTok violated a 2019 children’s privacy law by collecting personal information from kids under 13 without consent from their parents. TikTok denies the claims.
Last month, TikTok stars Richards and Noah Beck joined Triller. And Richards was named chief strategy officer for Triller while Beck joined the company as an advisor as well. Both of them are equity shareholders in Triller as well.
As of April, TikTok hit an estimated 2 billion downloads worldwide and it has hundreds of millions of users. Microsoft is also actively pursuing a deal to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok. TikTok is currently owned by China-based ByteDance.
Another rival in the social music space is Facebook’s Instagram. Instagram recently launched a feature called Reels that works similarly to TikTok and Triller.
Last month, Triller filed a patent infringement lawsuit against TikTok and ByteDance in the U.S District Court for the Western Division of Texas. The lawsuit alleges that TikTok is infringing on Triller’s U.S Patent No. 9,691,429.
This patent covers “systems and methods for creating music videos synchronized with an audio track.” And the patent lists Triller co-founders David Leiberman and Sammy Rubin as the creators.
