TikTok Is Upending the Music Industry [Content Made Simple]
TikTok Is Upending the Music Industry [Content Made Simple]
Issue #280: Doomscrolling issues, TikTok hacked?, and more.
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TOP OF THE WEEK
TikTok Is Upending the Music Industry
Quote:
In 2021, over 175 songs that trended on TikTok charted on the Billboard Hot 100, twice as many as the prior year, according to TikTok’s annual music report.
“It’s a household name and it’s really effective,” said Mary Rahmani, a former TikTok executive who last year founded the agency and record label Moon Projects. “It’s still the No. 1 platform that drives to streams.”
Commentary:
Wow. Anyone who pays attention to both TikTok and what kind of music is popular these days knows that the two are clearly related, but this is the first time I’ve seen numbers tied to it. Just crazy.
THE TRIVIA QUESTION
In honor of the NFL starting tonight, which NFL player scored the most points in his career?
Answer is linked at the bottom.
HITTING THE LINKS
Link #1: Just a Few People Crowned Some of YouTube’s Earliest Hits
Interesting! Never heard of this.
When YouTube was founded in 2005, people often arrived at its videos from a link sent by a friend or found in a Google search. A fair number also came in through its homepage, which company engineers populated by slotting in popular or amusing videos between coding sessions. But wider exposure and new business deals demanded a better approach. By the summer of 2006, YouTube had already become a mass-media must-see, with more than 100 million daily views. Verizon Wireless, which agreed to put a limited version of YouTube on its mobile phones later that year, wanted a more finely curated selection of clips. Apple, which was preparing to debut a new gadget, the iPhone, was interested in something similar, according to multiple people at YouTube involved in discussions.
Link #2: Doomscrolling linked to poor physical and mental health, study finds
Wow. Unsurprising.
There’s no shortage of bad news in the media to “doomscroll”, from a global pandemic to the war in Ukraine and an impending climate crisis, but new research suggests the compulsive urge to surf the web can lead to poor mental and physical health outcomes.
Doomscrolling is the tendency to “continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening or depressing”, a practice researchers found has boomed since the onset of the pandemic.
Link #3: TikTok Denies Reports That It’s Been Hacked
Not usually a good sign if you’re even having to deny such reports.
TikTok is denying reports that it was breached after a hacking group posted images of what they claim is a TikTok database that contains the platform’s source code and user information (via Bleeping Computer). In response to these allegations, TikTok said its team “found no evidence of a security breach.”
According to Bleeping Computer, hackers shared the images of the alleged database to a hacking forum, saying they obtained the data on a server used by TikTok. It claims the server stores over 2 billion records and 790GB worth of user data, platform statistics, code, and more.
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