Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has a long history of copying competitors’ features and building up market share. Now, the hottest up-and-coming social media company, ByteDance, is pulling an UNO reverse card on Meta, as it has just announced an Instagram competitor.
ByteDance has just quietly released a new app called Whee, which closely resembles Instagram. It’s not quite an Instagram clone, but the resemblance is pretty uncanny. It’s available on Android in several countries, but not yet in the US (we wonder why, huh?), and it focuses on a more personal sharing experience rather than a public one. Unlike Instagram’s public accounts, Whee emphasizes sharing photos exclusively with friends. This is also the direction the app is geared towards, apparently, as it’s marketed with messages like “Share with friends only” and “Made for friends.” This is also in stark contrast to TikTok, which has an algorithm that makes it very easy for your stuff to reach complete strangers.
Whee’s user interface appears simple, featuring tabs for the camera, feed, and messages, similar to Instagram. An Instagram-like notification button is also present. The app resembles Instagram a lot, so even if it’s not exactly an Instagram clone, we can’t help but draw comparisons. On the other hand, this is also not ByteDance’s only recent social media launch. We also have TikTok Notes, which is kind of like Instagram, but also has a text component that brings it close to Twitter/Threads. We hope ByteDance has a larger strategy here, because we’re certainly not seeing it. There is also no information on whether Whee will be launched globally. This quiet release might be a soft launch, and ByteDance could potentially withdraw the app before it reaches a wider audience.
If you want to give it a shot, and you happen to live in one of the countries where it’s available, you can download it from the Google Play Store (it doesn’t seem to be live on iPhone or iPad at all yet). The “friends-only” nature of the app also means that your friends will also need to check it out if you actually want to use it, so perhaps spread the word too.
Source: Artem Russakovskii via Android Police
