North Texas is home to one of the fastest-growing social media platforms.
Clapper is a video-based social media outlet promoting authenticity and providing a voice for the average person. Its tagline is: Be Seen, Be Heard, Be Valued.Â
The app was founded in 2020 in Plano, Texas, and has been considered a TikTok alternative for Generation X and Y.Â
The app features no ads, allowing users to monetize their platforms through a subscription-based model.Â
Clapper is currently ranked No.25 on the App store in the social network category and has 3 million registered accounts with around 100,000 daily active users.
“We initially created this platform because I believe the vertical community is the next generation of social networks,” Clapper CEO Edison Chen told The Dallas Express in an interview.
Vertical social networks are social platforms that are dedicated to creating communities with similar interests, according to Buffer.Â
“The second reason I started it is because short video is pretty powerful.”Â
Despite TikTok’s rapid growth in America, Chen feels there still is an opportunity for an alternative geared towards Generation X and Y, who generally do not fare as well on TikTok.Â
“We did some research and found out, you know, especially Gen X and Y, they have a hard time standing out, and they have a hard time with their content to be seen on TikTok,” Chen said.
“They are not as good at all the fancy effects, entertainment, and dancing that are all key features of TikTok, but I believe their content is still pretty valuable, and their experiences are worth being seen and heard.”Â
Another key differentiator is that Clapper’s revenue model is not ad-based, unlike most social media platforms.Â
“With the more ads a social network has, it’s definitely gonna affect user experience. So I built Clapper with no ads but a creator economy focus,” said Chen. Â
“Our monetization model is that users can directly support creators through tipping and paid subscriptions to their memberships,” he explained.Â
Clapper generates revenue by taking a percentage of these user-based payments to creators. Chen said the app is averaging around 10,000 downloads per day.
Unlike its competitors, Clapper does not emphasize virality like its social media peers.Â
“Our user interface is similar to TikTok, but the fundamental structure is different. Our algorithm is totally different from TikTok, and we have no viral video algorithms,” Chen said.
“We use a fair algorithm that focuses on organic impressions.”
Chen said the goal is to build communities of people with similar interests, not focused on forcing users to create viral content to create a following.Â
“We want every creator to have the ability to create and find their own group of people,” he said.
I am very suspicious of the CEO of the clapper background. China is trying to get to our people through many things. Is this one of them?