• by Colin Kirkland , May 16, 2024

As TikTok and its massive creator base attempt to block the potential ban/selloff in the U.S., the ByteDance-owned social media company is continuing to compete with YouTube by testing the ability for users to upload hour-long videos.

The company says that the feature, which marks the platform's longest video-upload length by 30 minutes, is currently available to a limited group of users in select markets. TikTok has no immediate plans to make the feature widely available.

TikTok gained global popularity through its short-form video-sharing ecosystem, curated by a powerful algorithm. Originally, the app invited users to upload 15-second videos, which quickly influenced every competing social platform to adopt its own short-form video features.

However, over the past several years, the company has been increasing its upload time limit, moving from 3 minutes to 5 minutes to 10 minutes in March 2022 in attempts to boost ad revenue and usher in a more diverse selection of videos, like cooking demos, beauty tutorials, educational lesson plans, comedic sketches, and full episodes of TV shows.

In October 2023, TikTok added the option for 15-minute uploads, solidifying its decision to enter into YouTube's area of expertise. A few months later, it introduced 30-minute uploads.

<p\>The ability to upload hour-long videos may further influence creators who typically flock to YouTube to experiment with TikTok’s global audience of 1.5 billion people, while opening up the opportunity for TV networks to release the first episodes of new series for free on TikTok instead of YouTube.