As reported by the Techcrunch, TikTok, which is the fastest growing social media app, has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years - so much so that it has inspired social media competitors Instagram and Snapchat to copy some of its features in Reels and Spotlight respectively.
A Google executive confirmed that the TikTok feature is changing the way young people do at least part of their web searches, with Google keen to introduce something similar. Google vice president Prabhakar Raghavan told the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference that according to internal company studies, "about 40% of young people when they are looking for a place to eat, they don't go to Google Maps or search, but to TikTok or Instagram."
Google confirmed this statistic in the Insider, stating that "we face strong competition from different sources, including general and specialist search engines, as well as smartphone apps". Google highlighted changes it plans to make to its search engine to appeal to a younger audience, including the ability for users to point their camera over an area and instantly gather information on multiple items in a wider scene. Insider Intelligence predicts that TikTok's advertising revenue will surpass that of YouTube by 2024.
