• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, March 1, 2022

TikTok has upped the maximum length of its videos to 10 minutes in a presumed effort to attract more advertising. But the move is making some users unhappy.

TikTok originally took off with young people because of its bite-size, easy-to-create 15-second format. The maximum was raised to 60 seconds and then, just this past July, to three minutes.

“We’re always thinking about new ways to bring value to our community and enrich the TikTok experience,” TikTok said in a statement. “Last year, we introduced longer videos, giving our community more time to create and be entertained on TikTok. Today, we’re excited to start rolling out the ability to upload videos that are up to 10 minutes, which we hope would unleash even more creative possibilities for our creators around the world.”

Many social media posters have been complaining since the news broke, with some suggesting that TikTok is losing its cool factor or is even no longer needed, since it has "crept up" on YouTube's long-form formatting. 

Internal TikTok consumer research obtained by Wired, confirmed that most users have very short attention spans, and given the volume of videos they receive, nearly half said that videos longer than one minute actually create stress. 

But the longer format is expected to help TikTok increase time-per-user, and may be necessary for the app and attract more advertising, at a time when YouTube and Instagram are going after TikTok with their own short-form formats -- Shorts and Reels, respectively.

TikTok is investing heavily to drive its ad revenue from $4 billion in 2021 to $12 billion this year--nearly doubling the size of its advertising products and technical teams, according to a report in China's LatePost cited by eMarketer.

Also, the assumption is that TikTok must not have experienced much consumer pushback on the three-minute maxiumum, and that TikTok tested the 10-minute leap before it began rolling it out globally.