After becoming the go-to app for beauty hacks, breakfast trends and viral photo challenges, TikTok has announced what could be its biggest change yet: longer videos.
From now on, creators will be able to make videos lasting up to three minutes – that's a full two minutes longer than the current 60-second limit.
TikTok's product manager, Drew Kirchhoff, said in a blog post that the aim is to enable "even richer storytelling and entertainment" on the platform.
"Creators are already well-versed in weaving multi-part stories together on TikTok – we all know the phrase, 'like and follow for part 3'," Kirchhoff said. "But we often hear from creators that they'd love just a little more time."
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Some creators have already been given the option to make longer videos; in fact, TikTok has been trialling it for around a year. The new option will now be rolled out to all users "over the coming weeks", Kirchhoff said, and you'll receive a notification once it's available to you.
At this point, it's up to creators to determine whether longer TikTok videos are the future of the app, or just an occasional storytelling choice.
@chowderthebulldog We’re trying out TikTok’s new longer video format. Please let us know what you think. #fyp #bulldogtiktok #dogsoftiktok #petsoftiktok #tipsandtricks
♬ original sound - Chowder
TikTok's introduction of longer videos comes in the same week as rival app Instagram announced several changes – including a move to make videos a more integral part of its experience.
"What you're going to see over the next couple of months, really, is us start to experiment more in the space of what we call recommendations, so showing you things in Feed that you may not be following yet," Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said. "We're also going to be experimenting with how do we embrace video more broadly: full-screen, immersive, entertaining, mobile-first video."