TikTok, known in China as Douyin (Chinese: 抖音; pinyin: Dǒuyīn), is a Chinese video-sharing focused social networking service owned by ByteDance. The social media platform is used to make a variety of short-form videos, from genres like dance, comedy, and education, that have a duration from fifteen seconds to three minutes. TikTok is an international version of Douyin, which was originally released in the Chinese market in September 2016. Later, TikTok was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of mainland China; however, it only became available worldwide after merging with another Chinese social media service, Musical.ly, on 2 August 2018.