ByteDance’s Long-Gone App Quietly Climbs Back onto Apple Store Charts
📱 Remember Duoshan? The Social App That Came Back From the Dead
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Few internet apps manage to make a comeback after receiving what looks like a “death sentence.”
On November 18, GeekPark noticed that five of the six top free apps in China’s App Store were from ByteDance:
- Doubao
- Hongguo Short Drama
- Douyin Mall
- Duoshan
- Qishui Music
Except for Doubao, all are part of the Douyin ecosystem. Among these, Duoshan might be the most surprising — many users barely remember it.
🚀 Flashback to 2019
- Launched as ByteDance’s first standalone social product
- Mission: “Encircle and suppress WeChat”
- Debut was high-profile but short-lived
- Rumors of development halt soon followed
Now, Duoshan has not only survived but surged:
- 5th place in the overall free chart
- #1 in social category on the App Store
This revival hints at ByteDance’s traffic anxieties — and possibly ambitions to reshape social networking through AI integration.
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01 — From Challenger to “Shadow” of Douyin
📊 Comeback Timeline
According to Qimai data:
- Early 2023: climbed to 4th in social chart
- Overall chart: peaked at 36th, then fluctuated
- November 11 surge: 162nd → 5th place
🎥 Original Concept
- 2019 focus: video social
- Inspired by Snapchat features: 72-hour disappearing posts, casual shooting
- Backed by Zhang Yiming at ByteDance’s 7th anniversary
- Downloads fell as subsidies ended
🔄 Product Transformations
- 2022 — Camera-based social redesign
- 2023 — Became “official Douyin chat app”
- Rumors of halted development late last year
- May 2023 onward — Quiet resumption of updates
- Nov 2023 — Five rapid updates in one month
The latest version (36.6.0) adds practical chat features, edging closer to a “Douyin version of WeChat.”
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💡 Strategic Shift
ByteDance appears to have realized:
> Creating a new social network from scratch is less viable than leveraging Douyin’s traffic as the foundation.
Duoshan now:
- Stripped-down short-video square
- Chat-focused, instant messaging only
- Acts as Douyin’s “Messenger”
- Survival ensured as long as Douyin users want to chat
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02 — More Than Just “Chat”
🔍 Why Keep a Separate App?
If chat alone were the goal, Douyin’s built-in messaging suffices. But Duoshan’s standalone presence may benefit:
- Private domain traffic retention for merchants
- Cleaner, less content-cluttered space for customer interaction
- Complements algorithmic recommendations with social-driven ones
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🏢 ByteDance’s Latest Restructure
On Nov 17, ByteDance announced deep tech integration between:
- China E-commerce
- Lifestyle Services
- China Advertising
Forming the China Transactions & Advertising unit, led by Wang Fengkun.
Impact:
- Unified traffic + transaction scenarios (local lifestyle, e-commerce)
- Duoshan positioned to:
- 🌱 Retain private domain relationships
- 🔗 Bridge gaps between social and algorithmic discovery
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🎯 New Mission
Duoshan’s role has shifted from offense to defense:
- No longer aiming to topple WeChat
- Functions as Douyin’s private social garden
- Captures connections before they migrate to rival platforms
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📌 Side Note: ByteDance’s Social Experiments
- Maoxiang — AI social product for “companion chat” with virtual characters
- Once high-engagement, now fallen by 90% in downloads after domestic product purge
Overall, Duoshan’s journey reflects ByteDance’s pragmatic shift from disruption to ecosystem service.
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🌐 Ecosystem Examples
Open-source projects like AiToEarn官网 show the trend:
- AI-powered content generation
- Cross-platform publishing to Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, X (Twitter)
- Built-in analytics, monetization, and AI模型排名
Such tools demonstrate how social, content, and commerce can be tightly integrated — much like Duoshan in Douyin’s ecosystem.
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💭 Key Insight:
> The app that defeats WeChat will never be another WeChat — but the social networking war is far from over.
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✅ Suggestion:
We can also visualize Duoshan’s position with a strategic diagram showing its links within ByteDance’s “Transactions + Advertising” architecture. This would clearly map:
- Douyin traffic flows
- Duoshan’s retention function
- Links to monetization pathways
Would you like me to create that diagram next?
