TikTok to take on YouTube with 60-minute-long videos: Here are the details

TikTok’s 15-second-long videos took the world by a storm when the app launched back in 2016. The format got so popular that it was copied by both Instagram and YouTube. But now, TikTok is taking a page from YouTube and Instagram’s book and experimenting with long-format videos.

TikTok, in a statement to TechCrunch, confirmed that it has started testing 60-minute-long videos on its platform and that this feature is available to users in select countries at the moment. The company has also confirmed that while it has started testing the 60-minute-long videos on its platform, it has no plans to make this feature widely available in countries across the globe just yet.

TikTok has had a change of heart in the past

It is worth noting that this is not the first time that TikTok has experimented with longer format videos on its platform. While TikTok made a debut with 15-second-long videos, in 2021 it increased the video length to three minutes. “Now we’re introducing the option for our global community to create longer videos – paving the way for even richer storytelling and entertainment on TikTok,” the company had written in a post at the time.

A year-later in 2022, the company announced 10-minute-long video support on its platform. This was done in order to let creators share long-format videos on the platform. Shortly after, the company removed the feature from its user interface after it received backlash from its users. “We have not removed 10-minute videos – users can still upload videos up to 10 minutes. There was an earlier experiment that allowed select users to also record videos up to 10 minutes from the TikTok app, but that has since ended,” TikTok said at the time.

Now, the company is taking a page from YouTube’s book and testing the ability to share an hour-long-videos on its platform.

What does TikTok’s 60-minute-long-videos mean for users?

Having the ability to upload hour-long-videos means users share their own shows showing recipes or art-classes on the platform. It will also enable companies to share full episodes of their shows on the platform. That said, it remains unclear if TikTok will roll out this feature to its wider userbase. But if it wants a part of its competitor YouTube‘s userbase, one-hour-long video might be the way to go.