TikTok has been spotted testing the ability for users to upload 30-minute videos, signaling a significant move away from the short-form video format that made it popular.
The company initially rose to popularity for its short-form video format but has slowly been embracing long-form content. If the new upload limit rolls out widely, TikTok will have come a long way from its original video time limit of 15 seconds.
After bumping up the limit from 15 seconds to a minute, TikTok later expanded it to three minutes, and then 10 minutes. TikTok began testing a 15-minute video upload limit a few months ago.
The change puts TikTok in even more direct competition with YouTube. The move indicates that TikTok wants to attract longer-form video creators who normally post content on YouTube.
In the past, TikTok was seen as the platform for short-form content, while YouTube was seen as the home of long-form content, with creators using both platforms to reach viewers.
As with the previous time limit expansions, the new limit would give creators even more time and flexibility when sharing things like cooking recipes, beauty tutorials, education content and comedy sketches. However, the new 30-minute limit would open up a new type of content that wasn't possible with the previous time limits, and that is the ability to upload full episodes of TV shows.
With this new 30-minute limit, networks would no longer have to break up an episode into multiple parts, and could instead post entire episodes in one video on TikTok. Networks are already using TikTok to reach viewers, and the new upload time limit could entice them to share content on TikTok.
TikTok rolled out a feature last year that lets users fast-forward videos by holding down the right-side of a video.
