TikTok and WeChat Expose Big Tech’s Lack of Innovation

The jockeying by Microsoft Corp. and possibly other U.S. companies to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations shines a harsh light on how domestic technology giants are falling behind on innovation in social media and other areas of opportunity.

Both ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat are living on borrowed time in the U.S. after President Donald Trump signed executive orders last week effectively banning the apps after 45 days. The renewed focus brings to the forefront how badly American social media apps have lagged their Asian counterparts. Consider Twitter Inc., for example. Despite spending roughly $700 million a year in research and development, the microblogging company’s main offering has stayed virtually the same over the past decade. Amazingly, its biggest innovation may be doubling the character count for each tweet in 2017. That’s not an impressive return on large amounts of investment spending. Similarly, Facebook Inc.’s and Google’s platforms haven’t been much better. The core functionality of Instagram’s photo-sharing scrollable feed and YouTube’s video search interface hasn’t changed much over the past few years.