TikTok's crushing Big Tech, but what do we really know?

First off, thanks to all of you who joined our latest Scotch and Watch live session. So good to see you there and get your real-time feedback. We’ll be doing more.

The topic was TikTok. It’s an absolute beast.

It’s growing faster than Facebook and Instagram did at their peak. More people, and everywhere, just seem to like TikTok more.

It’s accelerating faster than Google’s YouTube. More people are uploading more videos on TikTok, and it’s on track to overtake YT’s earnings within 18 months.

TikTok has also dared to tread where others feared. It invested in building an ad tech stack to challenge Google and Meta head on.

And last year, its ad revenue soared 68 per cent, dwarfing Google’s 12 per cent growth five-to-one, and surpassing Meta’s 22 per cent three times over.

And TikTok Shop, launched to challenge Amazon’s ecommerce, did $4 billion in its first year. Amazon achieved only $15 million in its first two years.

TikTok isn’t so much a social network as a timebomb for Silicon Valley’s establishment, who look less like disruptors and more like grandees every day.

It’s easy to see why the White House is threatened by a Chinese upstart with the potential to upend 25 years of US exceptionalism and stellar wealth expansion.

For years, my focus has been the reigning champions: Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Now TikTok has too much momentum to ignore.

So, I’ve dived deep into its stats and reports to decipher its growth, and along the way, unearthed a series of strategic partnerships where publishers and TikTok co-align.

It’s good timing.

Google and the news industry are in the middle of a messy divorce, and they ain’t never, ever, ever, getting back together. Not, ever. 🎶

And Meta, well it’s fled the coop, taken the kids, and changed the locks.

So, is news well placed to embrace TikTok as its new BFF?

Chris and I find out together - and there’ll be another Substack live this coming Friday. Stay tuned...

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But before we dive in, let’s welcome a flood of new subs from Meta, Spotify (congrats on the first year of profits - music to my ears), Nvidia, Adobe, USA Today, The Guardian, Bauer Media in London, MediaWeek, The Irish Star, Free TV Australia, payments platform Dandelion in New Zealand (love your branding), the office of the Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and from the team of the Australian Minister for Skills and Training, the Australian Associated Press, Canadian marketing group Clearmotive, ad ID innovator Anonymised in Barcelona, Spain, the Foster School of Business in Seattle, the data team at ANZ Bank, and then California’s Rocket Vodka and Sullivans Cove Distillery in Tasmania. (I’m still looking for a drinks partner, and it’s hotting up with Lark :)

And thanks to this week’s sponsor Avid Collective.

Now the former CEO of Bauer UK Chris Duncan and I chat it out.

This is Scotch and Watch. Enjoy...