The viral short video platform TikTok might have just gotten itself a good competitor with tons of cash to spend as it differentiates itself by paying you upon sign up, watch video and bring others to do the same. The app was launched at the beginning of this month of May and is now number one free app in the Apple’s App Store and in the top 10 on Google‘s Play Store as well.

The new platform, Zynn is like a complete replica of TikTok from A-Z with its core interface being cloned up to create the new platform as well as the support for portrait-orientation videos. The little difference between them which obviously is what just sets the platform apart is the countdown timer with a dollar sign at the middle which hovers every video on Zynn.

With that, each time you watch videos, the timer just fills up and then give you points which can be redeemed later on as cash or gift cards. While that sounds amazing enough, I myself will give it a trial and see what’s up with it. Meanwhile there have been some people on YouTube who have being showing payment receipts everywhere.

THE GOAL IS TO MAKE MORE AD REVENUE THAN ZYNN PAYS OUT TO USERS

While you might think the new platform suddenly spring up overnight, Zynn is just the extension of a rivalry over video apps in China and the creator of the application Kuaishou is a rich startup which runs one of the biggest video apps in the far-Eastern country. The application is just second to Douyin which is the Chinese version of TikTok.

Kuaishou on one hand utilized the same technique of paying viewers just as it did in China according to reports. The company then makes it revenue by selling ads and the most important thing is how much it’s able to rake in compared to how much it pays out even though there seems to be no ads on the platform for now something startups are usually known for.

And speaking of being “Well-funded”, Kuaishou recently got about US$2 billion investment from Tencent which is the owner of WeChat according to The Information which reported back in December that the investment was meant to help Tencent “contain the threat of ByteDance” which owns TikTok and Douyin. Kuaishou then expanded its goal into the US market with the company using the same strategy which Bytedance uses.

And speaking of Zynn, the new platform has grown so fast and the fact that it’s paying out it’s viewers makes that growth exponential. Using the app, there is ability to use the referral schemes which basically pay you for whoever you bring on to the platform. There is in fact a big banner which promises to give you about US$110 if you can bring about five people to sign up meanwhile those people will have to be regular users before you can get the reward anyway.

There are also pre-filled videos on Zynn as it pulls in videos from Kuaishou and The Information reported that Zynn’s video are mostly from Kuaishou right now.

Just like TikTok, the app opens up an interface that allows you to start watching videos straight up right upon opening the application. Then you might want to create account at least to earn rewards right but there isn’t one. Trying to use social media accounts or Google account to log in straight up didn’t work either. Meanwhile the application would request access to your phone number, location and other important details such as your PayPal just when you want to receive your payment which I haven’t even tried out myself just yet.