Reddit has finally shut down video platform Dubsmash less than two years after buying it. The social media company had acquired Dubsmash in 2020 in an auction to strengthen its wings to be the top-most short video-sharing app.
Dubsmash, a once-viral app, let users post videos of themselves dancing and lip-syncing to popular songs. The app was taken down on Tuesday and is no longer accessible for download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Late last year, Reddit had announced, in a blog post, its intention to shut down the video platform and the ways in which it plans to integrate Dubsmash’s features onto its platform.
The New York-based video sharing app was founded in 2014 by Jonas Druppel, Roland Grenke, and Daniel Taschik in Germany. In 2016, the company shifted from Germany to Brooklyn.
On February 18, 2019, Dubsmash had a data breach, which saw more than 162 million accounts being compromised and its data being made available for purchase on the Dream Market.
According to the analytics firm Data.ai, Dubsmash saw 408,000 downloads in December 2019, a year before it was acquired by Reddit, compared to TikTok’s 4.5 million. In December, that figure had dropped to only 63,000 downloads for Dubsmash, compared to 4.6 million for TikTok.
In the early years of Dubsmash, the platform saw some success with celebrities trying out the app. In 2015, Rihanna prodded the arrival of her single “B- – – – Better Have My Money” by posting a video on Dubsmash. Later that year, Selena Gomez and Jimmy Fallon joined the platform on the comedian’s show.
Dubsmash is seen as an older and considerably less successful variant of TikTok, the worldwide short- form video phenomenon.
