TikTok alternative Skylight soars to 380K+ users after TikTok U.S. deal finalized

Skylight, a TikTok alternate built connected unfastened root technology, is benefiting from concerns that arose implicit TikTok U.S.’s alteration successful ownership past week. The startup, a shaper of a short-form, vertical video app akin to TikTok, says it has present topped implicit 380,000 users and is continuing to turn aft a engaged weekend.

Launched past twelvemonth and backed by Mark Cuban and different investors, Skylight’s mobile app is built connected the AT Protocol, the exertion that besides powers the decentralized X rival, Bluesky, which present has northbound of 42 cardinal users.

Skylight, co-founded by CEO Tori White and CTO Reed Harmeyer, offers a built-in video editor, idiosyncratic profiles, enactment for likes, commenting, and sharing, and the quality for community curators to make customized feeds for others to follow.

Image Credits:Skylight

The app present has implicit 150,000 videos uploaded straight to the platform. It tin besides watercourse videos from Bluesky due to the fact that of its AT Protocol integration.

Harmeyer said Saturday that 1.4 cardinal videos were played connected the app the time before, up 3x implicit the past 24 hours. The app had besides seen signups summation much than 150%. Other noteworthy stats see implicit a 50% summation successful returning users, implicit 40% emergence successful video played connected average, and implicit 100% summation successful posts created.

This surge was apt triggered by concerns implicit TikTok’s alteration successful ownership and its unluckily timed technical glitches.

TikTok had announced on January 22 the constitution of the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, designed to comply with Trump’s executive order requiring the company’s U.S. operations beryllium sold to a radical of American investors. TikTok’s Chinese genitor ByteDance volition present ain little than 20% of the caller entity.

The woody was a effect of accrued tensions betwixt the U.S. and China, which led to concerns that TikTok could beryllium a menace to nationalist security, some by collecting information connected U.S. citizens and done algorithmic influence. Now, however, immoderate of TikTok’s users are much disquieted astir the caller American investors and their allegiance to Trump.

Those concerns grew to a caput erstwhile TikTok pushed retired an updated privateness policy, which includes support to way users’ GPS coordinates, among different things. Users besides pointed to connection successful the privateness argumentation that said the app would way migration status. Although that connection was not new, and its inclusion has to bash with adherence to authorities privateness laws, immoderate users began encouraging radical to delete the app.

While it’s chartless however galore TikTok users really followed through, what is wide is that immoderate radical sought retired alternatives. Over the weekend, Skylight’s CEO Tori White said the app added astir 20,000 caller users and is continuing to grow. So acold this January, the app has seen astir 95,000 monthly progressive users.

White credited the app’s much unfastened and customizable quality arsenic the unit down its growth.

While Skylight has made notable gains, it’s inactive overshadowed by TikTok and its 200 cardinal monthly progressive U.S. users. Still, Skylight’s founders judge their attack provides an opening for growth.

“We’ve seen what happens erstwhile 1 idiosyncratic dictates what’s pushed into people’s feeds,” White told TechCrunch. “Not lone does it harm a creator’s transportation with their followers, but the full wellness of the platform. That’s wherefore we built Skylight Social connected unfastened standards. We wanted creator and idiosyncratic powerfulness to beryllium guaranteed by the technology. Not an bare promise, but an irrevocable right.”