Musical.ly is a kind of social network app for video creation and live broadcasting. The first prototype was released in April 2014, and the official version was launched in August of that year. Through the app, users could create 15-second to 1 minute videos and choose sound tracks to accompany them, use different speed options (time-lapse, fast, normal, slow motion, and epic) and add pre-set filters and effects. The app also allowed users to browse popular “musers,” content, trending songs and sounds and hashtags. In August 2018, musical.ly was absorbed into the app TikTok.
From July 2016 to August 2018, musical.ly had over 90 million registered users and had an average of 580 million new videos posted a day and by the end of May 2017 the app reached over 200 million users.musical.ly was headquartered in Shanghai and had offices in San Francisco, California.
On November 9, 2017, Bytedance Technology Co. acquired Musical.ly, Inc for US $1 billion. Bytedance also owns the company Tik Tok and, on August 2, 2018, merged Tik Tok with the musical.ly app and retained the name Tik Tok.
