TikTok, owned by China’s Bytedance has announced will now allow its users to create videos up to three minutes in length, after months of testing the update with a wider number of users.
Earlier, TikTok videos could be up to 60 seconds long and add special effects as well as soundtracks pulled from a music library, which has become wildly popular with teenagers in recent years, after starting out as 15-second pieces. TikTok competitors, such as Snapchat Spotlight and YouTube Shorts, have since imitated this 60-second video format.
“In the coming weeks, we’ll be rolling out the opportunity to produce lengthier videos to everyone on TikTok. This will provide our global community the flexibility to film, upload, and edit videos up to three minutes in length directly within TikTok,” the TikTok Product Manager, Mr. Drew Kirchhoff said in a blog post.
The success of TikTok has led numerous social media firms to introduce short-video services to their platforms, with Facebook’s Instagram debuting Reels short video clips and Snap’s Snapchat launching Spotlight in November last year.
TikTok has encountered serious bans and canceling of the app in many countries. Last year, the US Commerce Department announced in June that it was revoking a list of prohibited transactions with TikTok and WeChat that had been issued in September as part of the Trump administration’s effort to prevent new US downloads of both Chinese-owned applications. TikTok’s largest market with 200 million users, India banned the service in June last year calling out the reason as a threat to national security.
By the end of 2020, TikTok witnessed a surge in downloading which was supported by Google.
TikTok had first begun tests of 3 minutes videos late last year. The company says the option to film longer videos will roll out to global users over the weeks ahead. Users will be notified when they receive the update.
