Musical.ly Now Has Video Suggestions, Plus New User Profiles

According to a report recently published by Variety, Musical.ly has decided to revamp its official mobile app in order to put more focus on offering recommendations and allowing users more customization. Perhaps the most significant update is a new “similar musical.lys” feature that takes full advantage of computer vision in order to determine what a particular video is about, for the purpose of suggesting similar videos that the user may fancy.

More than a couple of months ago, Musical.ly has started broadcasting original programs from Viacom, NBCU, and Hearst. As reported by Variety, the mobile app currently enjoys $147 million in financial backing, and has actually expanded to more than 215 million users. Analytics firm Sensor Tower has also reported that the United States mobile market has played a bigger role for the app, especially when it comes to the monetization from in-app purchases of coins. Sensor Tower further explained that despite the fact that just 31 percent of the app’s volume of downloads are from America, this particular market makes up 71 percent of sales.

In terms of the number of installations, Musical.ly has also shown some growth. It seems that the service is now looking to expand its customer base well beyond the usual kids and teenagers that regularly comprise its basic demographic. Moreover, the company is exploring ways in which it can increase the amount of time users spend being engaged with its app.

With regards to video recommendations, this feature is not new among video networks. But such a functionality can definitely help increase engagement among users, mainly because the more recommended videos they check out, the longer they remain engaged with the app. Looking at the bigger picture, the video recommendations feature could provide an opportunity for Musical.ly to also present other types of video content, not only those lip sync clips. 

Right now, Musical.ly actually has non-music videos on its network, including those also found on YouTube, ranging from video blogs to humor driven content. And as mentioned earlier, with the deals that the company had struck with Viacom, NBCU, and Hearst for short video series from MTV, E!, and Seventeen, respectively, it is now in a nice position to actually recommend a more expanded range of video content for its users.

And let us not forget about the new user profiles. With the overhaul, users can now upload a video clip instead of just a still image.