Curious…..
Tech Crunch report
After aggressively promoting its new lifestyle social media platform Lemon8 in the U.S., ByteDance appears to be brewing another content app for its biggest overseas market.
Lemon Inc., a subsidiary of ByteDance, has submitted a trademark application for a range of book publishing products and services, according to a filing posted on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The trademark, which is called “8TH NOTE PRESS,” offers an interesting glimpse into ByteDance’s apparent e-publishing ambitions.
The trademark filing was earlier reported by Business Insider.
The list of products and services registered with 8TH NOTE PRESS includes an app to read, download and discuss fiction e-books in an online community; retail bookstore services; ordering books in audio, printed and digital formats; publishing e-books, audiobooks and physical books, as well as providing online, non-downloadable fiction and non-fiction books.
Corporations register trademarks all the time in anticipation of expansion into new verticals in the future, but they don’t specify timelines or hold the registrants to any obligations, so the move to trademark 8TH NOTE PRESS doesn’t necessarily mean ByteDance is taking any material steps into the publishing world yet.
But book publishing and distribution do sound like logical next steps for ByteDance given TikTok’s success in attracting book lovers to share under the #BookTok hashtag on the short video platform. Though ByteDance posted a record profit last year as a whole, TikTok itself suffered widening losses, the Financial Times reported. ByteDance is likely eager to find new ways to monetize its hundreds of millions of users overseas.
