Bigo Live is a

live streaming Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...

platform owned by a

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

-based Bigo Technology, which was founded in 2014 by David Li and Jason Hu. As of 2019, Bigo Technology is owned b
JOYY
a

Chinese company Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

listed on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

. Bigo Technology has developed proprietary

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

that is integrated into the application. The AI features are used to enhance user engagement and experience during live streaming. Viewers can support their favorite broadcasters with in-app gifts, and some popular broadcasters use the app as a full-time employment. Bigo owns

Likee Likee (; formerly LIKE) is a short-video creation and sharing app, available for iOS and Android operating systems. It is owned by Singaporean tech firm BIGO Technology, whose parent company is JOYY Inc., a Chinese firm listed on NASDAQ. The f ...

, the short video creation and sharing app.

History

David Li was a journalist prior to entering the technology industry, and Jason Hu had worked for many technology companies before the creation of Bigo Technology. In 2014, Bigo was founded in

. In March 2016, Bigo Live launched. It is available for

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and Android operating systems. In April 2016, Bigo Live was the most downloaded app in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. In December 2018, Bigo Live reached 26.7 million monthly active users. In March 2019, the

listed company JOYY Inc. completed the acquisition of Bigo Technology. In November 2019, monthly active users of the company's apps reached over 350 million globally. In March 2020, it ranked 6th in the United States and 5th worldwide for

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

apps, based on total in-app purchase revenue. In May 2020, Bigo Live launched a partnership with Bark, an online safety solution, to keep kids safe online. In December 2020, Bigo Live announced a partnership with

The Trevor Project The Trevor Project is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1998. Focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, they offer a toll-free telephone number wher ...

, the world's largest

suicide prevention Suicide prevention is a collection of efforts to reduce the risk of suicide. Suicide is often preventable, and the efforts to prevent it may occur at the individual, relationship, community, and society level. Suicide is a serious public health ...

and crisis intervention organization for

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

youth. In early 2021, Bigo Live had 400 million users in more than 150 countries. In 2021, it reached 29.5 million average monthly active users in the second quarter of the year. In 2021, Bigo Live ranked top 2 according to App Annie’s 2021 Top Breakout Social Apps by consumer spending.

Features

* Streaming People can live broadcast their life moments, show their talents and receive virtual gifts from supporters. Users can watch trendy live streams and they can filter out broadcasters from a certain country on the explore page. Users that meet certain criteria can create their own families. Users can broadcast and watch live streams of popular games, such as

PUBG ''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Royale'' (2000), is based ...

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

, RoV, Free Fire,

Fortnite ''Fortnite'' is an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in three distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: ''Fortnite Battle Royale'', a free-to-p ...

Call of Duty ''Call of Duty'' is a first-person shooter video game Media franchise, franchise published by Activision. Starting out in 2003, it first focused on games set in World War II. Over time, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold W ...

Dota 2 ''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota 2' ...

Hearthstone ''Hearthstone'' is a free-to-play online digital collectible card game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Originally subtitled ''Heroes of Warcraft'', ''Hearthstone'' builds upon the existing lore of the ''Warcraft'' series by u ...

Rules of Survival ''Rules of Survival'' (''RoS'') is an inactive free-to-play, multiplayer online battle royale game developed and published by NetEase Games, first released via beta access in November 2017. By October 2018, the game had reached 230million p ...

and more. It signed on as a sponsor for Box Fighting Championship in 2020. * Live Video Chat &

Video Call Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

Users can invite friends to have a 1:1 online video chat, create group video chat or videos calls with up to 9 people in multi-guest rooms. With the match up function, users can initiate a random chat with people nearby or meet new users and possible become friends with them. Video filters and stickers are available for broadcasters. * Live PK Broadcasters can take PK challenges with other people. Those who get more points through gift-receiving win the game. There are 1:1 and team PKs. * Bar Users can share pictures and short videos, add

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...

s to their posts on bar, where people often upload clips and

screenshots screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display. Additionally, s ...

of their live streams. * Virtual Live In 2021, Bigo Live launched its virtual live 3D avatars. Users can represent themselves through digital avatars created on the app. The ‘Virtual Live’ feature is developed using a blend of VR and AR technology to capture realistic facial expressions and mimic user movements as they livestream in real-time. * Community In 2022, Bigo Live announced the launch of ‘Community,’ a new interactive feature that allows users to create and manage online communities, as well as post and share original content with other platform users who share similar interests.

Controversies

In June 2020, the

government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

banned Bigo along with 58 other apps of Chinese origin, citing data and privacy issues and added that it was a threat to the

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

and

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...

of the country. The border tensions in 2020 between India and China might have also played a role in the ban. In July 2020, Pakistan

banned A ban is a formal or informal prohibition of something. Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some bans in commerce are referred to as embargoes. ''Ban'' is also used as a verb similar in meaning ...

Bigo, and warned

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

over immoral, obscene, and vulgar content. The

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ( ur, ) is the telecommunication regulator of Pakistan, responsible for the establishment, operation and maintenance of telecommunication systems and the provision of telecommunication services in ...

said the content on the two platforms could have "extremely negative effects on the society in general and youth in particular," without elaborating. The

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ( ur, ) is the telecommunication regulator of Pakistan, responsible for the establishment, operation and maintenance of telecommunication systems and the provision of telecommunication services in ...

announced the lifting of the ban on 30 July 2020. On 13 June 2021, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of

Bangladesh Police The Bangladesh Police ( bn, বাংলাদেশ পুলিশ) of the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a law enforcement agency, operating under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It plays a crucial role in maintaining peace, and enforcement ...

arrested five people including Bigo's Operation Manager, a Chinese national, in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

for involvement in

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

and

blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...

. They were charged under the Anti-Money Laundering Act,

Digital Security Act The Digital Security Act, 2018 is a digital security law in Bangladesh. This act was passed with the aim of preventing the spread of racism; sectarianism; extremism; terrorist propaganda; and hatred against religious or ethnic minorities through soc ...

and Pornography Prevention Act.
"The Business Standard", 13 June 2021

References

{{reflist 2016 software 2016 introductions Social media companies IOS software Mobile software Video software Internet censorship in India