Toutiao facts for kids
Website logo 2023
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| Founded | August 2012 |
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| Owner | ByteDance |
| Founder(s) | Zhang Yiming |
| Services | Information recommendation engine |
| Jinri Toutiao | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Jinri Toutiao" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters.
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| Simplified Chinese | 今日头条 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 今日頭條 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Today's Headlines | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Toutiao | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 头条 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 頭條 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Headlines | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Toutiao (which means "headlines") or Jinri Toutiao ("Today's Headlines") is a very popular Chinese app. It gives you news and other interesting information. It's like a super smart news feed that learns what you like.
Toutiao is a main product of a big company called ByteDance, based in China. The app uses special computer programs called algorithms. These programs look at what you read and interact with. Then, they create a special list of content just for you.
Toutiao is one of China's biggest mobile platforms for creating and sharing content. It uses machine learning, which is a type of artificial intelligence. In September 2017, about 120 million people used it every day.
Contents
How Toutiao Started
In August 2012, the company Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd. launched the first version of Toutiao.
Where Toutiao Gets Its Content
At first, Toutiao got a lot of its content from the internet. Now, it works with many different sources.
- It partners with over 20,000 traditional news companies.
- It also works with 800,000 new content creators. These creators make articles and videos.
Growing with Investments
In 2012 and 2013, Toutiao received money from companies like Susquehanna International Group (SIG) Asia Investment and Yuri Milner. This helped the app grow.
In 2014, Sequoia Capital led a funding round, investing US$100 million. This made Toutiao worth about US$500 million. Sina Weibo also invested.
How Many People Use Toutiao?
Toutiao has grown a lot over the years:
- In 2016, 78 million people used the app every day.
- By September 2017, this number grew to 120 million daily users. At that time, Toutiao was valued at US$20 billion.
- In 2019, many publishers said that over 20% of their website visitors came from Toutiao.
- In 2021, Toutiao had 150 million daily active users. On average, each user spent 87 minutes on the app every day.
Keeping Content Safe
In 2018, a government group in China asked Toutiao to check its content more carefully. They wanted Toutiao to remove some accounts that were not appropriate.
Cool Features of Toutiao
Smart Recommendations with Algorithms
Toutiao uses smart computer programs called algorithms to pick different content for each person. It uses machine learning to suggest things you might like, even if you haven't searched for them yet.
When you first open the app, Toutiao gives you some general recommendations. Then, it learns from how you use the app. It uses natural language processing (understanding text) and computer vision (understanding images and videos) to figure out what each piece of content is about.
Videos on Toutiao
Toutiao launched its video section, now called Xigua Video, in May 2015. People can upload their short videos there. Toutiao's smart system then recommends these videos to users.
In 2016, videos on Toutiao were played 1 billion times every day! This made Toutiao the biggest short video platform in China at that time.
Ask and Answer Questions
In July 2016, Toutiao added a new section called Q&A (Questions and Answers). It's like an open discussion community. People can share their experiences and ideas on different topics. They can also talk with other users.
Toutiao's system matches questions with users who might know the answer. It uses natural language processing to understand the questions and user profiles to find the right people. Then, it invites them to answer.
Finding Fake News
Toutiao works hard to find and remove fake news. It uses a mix of human reviewers and automated computer analysis. This helps them check posts and comments to see if they are true.
Who Uses Toutiao?
Most Toutiao users are young people. About 90% of them are under 30 years old. On average, users spend about 76 minutes on the app every day. This means they read about 1.3 billion articles daily!
Community for Creators
In 2013, Toutiao created a platform for media groups to publish their own content. This platform later became known as the Toutiaohao Account.
By 2016, more than 350,000 people and groups had Toutiaohao Accounts. These include government offices, news companies, businesses, and individual writers. They publish about 150,000 articles and videos on Toutiao every day.
Toutiao Helping People
Finding Missing Persons
Toutiao has a special project called "Toutiao Alert for Missing Persons." It uses location-based alerts to help find people who are lost. If someone goes missing, people can send details like their last known location. After checking the information, Toutiao sends alerts to its users in the area where the person might be.
- By 2016, 700 missing people were found because Toutiao users gave clues.
- By February 2017, over 1000 missing people had been found using this helpful feature.
Research and Innovation
Toutiao has its own research team called Toutiao AI Lab. It started in March 2016 and is led by Ma Wei-Ying. This lab studies things like Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and Human-Computer Interaction. These are all about making computers smarter.
One cool project is Xiaomingbot. This is an AI-powered robot writer created by Toutiao Lab and Peking University. It can write articles automatically! For example, it wrote 450 articles during the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Toutiao Around the World
Toutiao has grown beyond China. It has entered countries like Japan, the US, Brazil, and countries in Southeast Asia.
- In October 2016, Toutiao invested US$25 million in an Indian app called Dailyhunt.
- Toutiao also gained control of an Indonesian news app called Babe in 2016.
- Toutiao's parent company, ByteDance, also owns TopBuzz, which is used in the US and Brazil.
- In January 2017, Toutiao bought a video creation app called Flipagram.
After a big investment round at the end of 2016, Toutiao was valued at more than US$11 billion.
See also
In Spanish: Toutiao para niños
- Xigua Video (formerly Toutiao Video), Toutiao's online video platform
- Artificial intelligence
- Recommender system
- Machine learning
- Algorithm
