Trump gets Triller & Mozilla lays off 250 employees & Likee -Tech clips 18.
Trump gets verified account on TikTok competitor Triller.
TikTok rival Likee reaches 150M monthly users worldwide.
Mozilla lays off 250 employees — about 25% of its workforce.
The Mozilla Corporation, the company behind the popular Firefox browser, has announced it is laying off 250 people.
In an internal email now made public in a blog post, the company cited the coronavirus as well as a new focus on developing monetizeable products as the reasons for the redundancies.
“We are making significant changes at Mozilla Corporation today,” Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker wrote in the email. “Our pre-COVID plan is no longer workable. We are also restructuring to put a crisper focus on new product development and go to market activities.”
“This is hard to internalize and I desperately wish there was some other way to set Mozilla up for success in building a better internet,” Baker added. “I desperately wish that all those who choose Mozilla as an employer could stay as long as interest and skills connect. Unfortunately, we can’t make that happen today.”
The company said it will permanently close its operations in Taipei, Taiwan, but more details about affected employees in the US and Canada will follow on Tuesday. Another 60 employees will be offered to switch teams.
Today’s announcement marks the second time this year the company has laid off a big chunk of its workforce. In January, the company let go of 70 employees, adding that slow rollout of products has affected its revenue. For context, the Mozilla Corporation reported it has a total of about 1,000 employees in 2018.
As TikTok’s fate remains in flux, its smaller rival Likee has been making waves around the world, garnering 150 million monthly active users as of this June.
That’s according to the earnings report of Chinese internet company Joyy, the owner of Likee. For comparison, TikTok recorded about 200 million daily active users in early 2020, an investor with knowledge told TechCrunch. That means its MAU will be much bigger, and TikTok has seen explosive growth since the COVID-19 outbreak that kept people home. Even as a potential ban and forced sale loom in the U.S., TikTok’s growth has only slid slightly.
Likee has something different to offer, as it allows influencers to easily make money from virtual gifts they receive from fans, The Ken acutely observed (paywalled). TikTok, on the other hand, prioritizes content consumers.
“I do think creators want to be paid and monetization helps,” Adam Blacker, a vice president at app analytics firm Apptopia, told TechCrunch.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump now has a verified account on TikTok competitor Triller, another sign of the White House’s disfavor toward the ByteDance-owned video-sharing app.
Triller is one of several TikTok alternatives that have experienced a surge of downloads since Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 6 that would prohibit certain transactions with TikTok unless ByteDance divests it within 45 days.
Trump on Friday ordered ByteDance to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok within 90 days.
TikTok is best known for viral dance videos that capture the American teenage zeitgeist, but U.S. officials have expressed concerns that user information could be passed by the Chinese-owned app on to authorities in Beijing.
ByteDance is already in talks to sell the North America, Australia and New Zealand operations of TikTok to Microsoft Corp. But with the company under a cloud, once-obscure competitors are stepping up their efforts to woo TikTok’s young userbase.
Trump’s Triller account had three short videos and a little more than 3,000 followers late on Saturday.
The Trump campaign and Triller did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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