Sherwood News

Could TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, offer a lifeline for ByteDance and creators?

When life gives you laws you don’t like, push Lemon8.

1/9/25 11:55AM

Tomorrow marks one of the biggest days in recent history for ByteDance, and for the most screen-addicted Americans in your life, as representatives from the Chinese tech giant make last-ditch appeals to the Supreme Court to try to divert the US ban on the company’s flagship app, TikTok.

As things stand, a bipartisan bill signed off by Joe Biden last April means that the short-form social-media behemoth would be outlawed in the US on January 19 (next Sunday), unless ByteDance sells the platform to an American company, or the Supreme Court intervenes, or President-elect Donald Trump intervenes, or some as yet unknown outcome saves the app, which reportedly counts more than 170 million users in the US.

While a ban wouldn’t automatically wipe TikTok from those 170 million Americans’ devices before they could say the word “rizzler,” new users wouldn’t be able to download it, and a ban on updates would eventually make the platform practically unusable.

Public support for the ban, proposed due to safety concerns around sensitive user data, has been dwindling, with millions of Americans already looking to another ByteDance app as an alternative if the ban goes through.

According to data from site-traffic tracker Similarweb, more than 2.3 million unique visitors clocked just over 5 million page views on the landing page for Lemon8 in America last month. That number has grown as TikTok creators — some of whom are being paid to do so by ByteDance — push users to the photo- and video-sharing “lifestyle community” TikTok alternative, per Axios.

Though Lemon8, which launched in the US in early 2023 but didn’t take off in the same way as TikTok, might not be the safest port in this particular storm. Indeed, the divest-or-ban part of the bill reportedly applies to other properties owned or operated by ByteDance, meaning that even the replacement app’s future could be in peril.

Rani Molla

12h

Meta posts an earnings and revenue beat — and a huge capex bill

The social media giant reported earnings after the bell Wednesday.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visits U.S. Capitol for Senate meetings

Rani Molla, Nate Becker

12h

Alphabet jumps as Q1 earnings and revenue blow past expectations

The search giant also boosted its capex forecast for the year and said it expects 2027 capex to be “significantly” higher than 2026.

Rani Molla17h

SpaceX filings reportedly show no one can fire Elon Musk except Elon Musk

The only thing stopping Elon Musk from being chairman and CEO of SpaceX is Elon Musk, according to Reuters, which viewed an excerpt of the company’s IPO filing.

The document outlines a dual-class share structure giving Musk control via super-voting stock. The filing says he “can only be removed from our board or these positions by the vote of Class B holders” — shares he’ll control after the listing. It adds that if he keeps those shares, he could “continue to control the election and removal of a majority of our board.”

At a typical public company — even founder-led ones with dual-class structures — a CEO can be fired by the board of directors, which represents shareholders and can vote to remove them over issues such as corporate performance, strategy, or misconduct.

The unusual SpaceX setup means Musk is unlikely to face the kind of CEO succession pressure he’s dealt with at Tesla. Musk, of course, is not a typical CEO, and the value of his companies has long been closely tied to his presence.

To be sure, SpaceX’s confidential IPO filing isn’t in its final form yet — while the filing is still in the confidential phase, the company will be going back and forth with the SEC, which will review it and suggest or require changes.

Exclusive: Only Elon Musk can fire Elon Musk from SpaceX, filing shows

Rani Molla4/28/26

OpenAI’s models are officially coming to Amazon

Amazon is finally getting in on the hottest ticket in tech.

After Microsoft announced yesterday that it has agreed to give up its exclusive rights to sell OpenAI’s models, Amazon, as expected, will start offering them to customers — something Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman says users have been asking for “for a really long time.” Some models are available now in preview, and the most powerful GPT versions will show up “in the coming weeks.”

This is a big shift in the AI cloud wars. Microsoft’s early bet on OpenAI gave Azure an edge by locking up the most in-demand models. Now that exclusivity is gone, Amazon and other competitors can finally offer them too, closing a key gap and competing more directly for AI customers.

Amazon Set to Sell OpenAI Tech After Microsoft Cedes Exclusivity

Claire Yubin Oh4/28/26

Ship-tracking app surges as Iran war continues

As Middle East peace talks stretch on, with Tehran reportedly offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US lifts its blockade and the war ends, the owner of shipping intelligence platform MarineTraffic revealed that the app has gained millions of new users since the conflict began.

MarineTraffic’s user count jumped to 8.5 million this April, up from 3.5 million a year ago, the cofounder of its parent company, Kpler, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Paid subscribers, often workers within companies and governments looking for more data on supply chains and commodities trading, rose 11,000 in the same period.

Kpler, which also owns shipping intelligence platform FleetMon, draws its data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System, satellites, and more than 500 people on-site, like port terminal operators.

Per Appfigures data, MarineTraffic is estimated to have raked in almost $1 million across March and April in app revenue (through April 27), more than double the ~$346,500 from the same months last year. Across the full year, Kpler expects to earn between $300 million and $400 million in annual recurring revenues.