TikTok is about to disappear in the United States. Bytedance will have to sell its flagship social network to an American company before January 19 or else it will have to close in the country. Citing “national security” reasons, the Trump administration determined that the app posed a risk due to the amount of data it shared with the Chinese government.
With the arrival of Biden comes laws to prohibit the sale of American user data to foreign companies, further cornering TikTok. Knowing that TikTok is on the verge of closure unless some miracle happens, Americans are already looking for alternatives. Within the top 1 of the most downloaded apps in the United States we find Rednote, an alternative to TikTok – even more so – Chinese.
What is Xiaohongshu (or Rednote). Xiaohongshu, whose translation into Spanish is “little red book” was launched in 2013 as an application focused on e-commerce, but over time it has evolved into a social network quite similar to Instagram.
It is an app in which both photographs and videos can be shared, and in which we find creators (mainly Chinese) with a lot of impact in their native country.
The app, in numbers. This social network has more than 300 million active users with a rather curious fact: 79% of them are women. Health and care, travel and lifestyle are some of the categories that work best in the app, a territory open to all users, but mostly female.
The platform is valued at $17 billion, and in 2024 it doubled its profits to $1 billion with rumors of a possible IPO.
Using the app. Currently Xiaohongshu is an app designed almost 100% for the Asian market. Much of the interface is in Chinese, most of the content is in Chinese, and it is quite difficult to understand it if we do not control this language.
However, as soon as I opened the application, a video of a content creator appeared in my feed explaining to me what the app is, where it comes from and why there are influencers encouraging people to migrate from TikTok.
Like the latter, Xiaohongshu allows us to select different interests, so that related videos appear in our feed. We also have a “Nearby” section in which we can find videos published near our location, and even a cart and shopping section, since it is possible to purchase products online within it.
It is not the best alternative to TikTok. Although the app is making a lot of noise, migrating from an app that the US government has banned mainly due to its trade war with China to another Chinese app may not be the best idea.
Huawei fell first, TikTok is now in the spotlight, and if Xiaohongshu became popular, nothing would stop her from being next on the list.
Image | WorldOfSoftware and Mockuups Studio
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