Lark has a Chinese name โ€“ Product Daily

What happened: Bytedanceโ€™s enterprise messaging and productivity app, Lark, messaged users on Jan. 18 to announce its new Chinese name, feishu. In the enterprise appโ€™s latest update, Lark will adopt its new name and shed its former logo, a blue Lark, in exchange for a blue paper airplane.

Why it matters: Challengers such as Bytedance are threatening WeChatโ€™s dominance in the Chinese social media space. The Tencent-owned messaging giant also offers enterprise services. Bytedance has been testing a beta version of Lark internally since 2018, and aside from Larkโ€”which has received positive reviews from those who have tested itโ€”Bytedance recently released video-based messenger app Duoshan, which appears to be an attempt to square off with WeChat. WeChat has fired back; Last week, the social media giant blocked Duoshan and two other social media rivals from its platform.

Cassidy McDonald is a Beijing-based multimedia journalist who covers technology's effect on Chinese society. She tweets at @CMcD123.

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