Will the Lemon8 app be the new TikTok or Instagram?
Lemon8 is the name of the new miracle app that, after Japan and China, is now also shaking up the USA and Great Britain. But what can the new app from the TikTok makers really do?
Lemon8: What can the app do?
The Lemon8 app is really good at looking good! Like a mixture of Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest, Lemon8 provides its users with lifestyle news primarily via beautiful pictures: the content is particularly shaped by fashion, beauty, travel, food and pets. And with that we let ourselves be carried away to a daring thesis: Lemon8 is obviously aimed at female users. Because what first made Pinterest and then Instagram big, Lemon8 is now copying: beautiful content that is aesthetically pleasing and often even reveals tips and hacks can be saved on your own boards. We kind of know, right?
Users can also toggle between their preferences on different tabs; another feed flushes content that might suit the user into a for-you channel.
Unlike Instagram and TikTok, if you want to be active on Lemon8 yourself, you would first have to concentrate on photos: videos can also be uploaded, but photos are currently given priority.
Lemon8 and influencers: is that possible?
Hardly a social media app without influencers. (Hi, BeReal!) This also applies to Lemon8: However, the sponsored posts by the content creators are currently not clearly marked as advertising. That’s – well – kinda dirty. But we all know it from Instagram back then. It is not yet known whether this will change in the future.
Lemon8: Who is behind the app?
Behind Lemon8 is the company ByteDance, to which we owe TikTok. It can be assumed that the TikTok makers from China will not create a competing platform in-house. But they want to address other people with Lemon8: those who have previously been on the go on Metas Instagram or Pinterest, TikTok’s competing platforms.
The aesthetics are based on the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, which is an indispensable part of the everyday life of the mostly female users under the age of 25: In the app, users can find answers to almost all questions of everyday life – from restaurant tips to travel recommendations to Users will find tips on mental health in this app.
TikTok may face a ban in the US because the app from China was or could be used for espionage purposes. With Lemon8, ByteDance is starting in a new and different way.
Lemon8: Does the social media app exist in Germany?
Unfortunately, the Lemon8 will not be available in German app stores at the end of April 2023. However, a roll-out should only be a matter of time after it has already been downloaded over 17 million times in parts of Asia, Great Britain and the USA.
Lemon8: These are the dangers of the app
A typical German argument against Lemon8, but one that should not be scoffed at, is very clear: data protection. Because it is completely unclear in which country the user data is stored. And Lemon8 (like TikTok) stores a lot of data: personal data, location data, browser history and IP address should give users a better app experience – and feed Lemon8’s algorithm.
However, where all this information is stored, how secure it is there and what the operators of Lemon8 intend to do with it in the long term remains another big (and unsolved) secret of the big data bubble.