TikTok’s Latest Move Aims to Compete with YouTube
TikTok is apparently testing to help users upload 30-minute videos in an effort to catch up with Google-owned YouTube.
Social media consultant Matt Navarra first noticed the new option in the iOS beta version of the app. “It’s happening. TikTok is testing 30-minute video uploads!”, he posted on Meta’s Threads.
“TikTok is coming for your long YouTube videos. Will Instagram Reels join the fray and add longer video uploads? I noticed this in the TikTok beta. A few others did too,” he wrote.
TikTok has yet to comment on the latest test.
The company started with an initial video time limit of 15 seconds, then moved to a minute, expanded it to three minutes, and then 10 minutes.
TikTok started testing a 15-minute video upload limit a few months ago. The new 30-minute video limit would open up new opportunities for the Chinese app.
According to the latest report from Data.ai, ByteDance’s TikTok has become the first app to surpass $10 billion in cumulative spend.
In just three years, the share of US adults who say they regularly get news from the Chinese short-form video platform TikTok more than quadrupled — from 3 percent in 2020 to 14 percent in 2023. A growing share of US adults say they regularly get news from TikTok.
This is in contrast to many other social media sites, where news consumption has either declined or stayed roughly flat in recent years, according to a recent survey by Pew Research. Among adults, 18- to 29-year-olds say they regularly get news from TikTok.
