What you need to know
- TikTok has announced that videos can be up to 10 minutes long.
- Videos posted to TikTok were previously limited to three minutes.
TikTok has confirmed that it is extending the length of videos to a whole ten minutes, whether people actually seem to want that, or not.
News broke last week that TikTok was testing longer videos and that people weren't convinced that was the way to go. Now, the video-based social network has announced that it's forging on regardless.
In a statement to TechCrunch, TikTok said that the extension comes after the outfit set about thinking of "new ways to bring value" to its users.
"We're always thinking about new ways to bring value to our community and enrich the TikTok experience. Last year, we introduced longer videos, giving our community more time to create and be entertained on TikTok," a spokesperson from TikTok said in a statement. "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."
Previously, TikToks were limited to three minutes which already seemed like a long time considering the 15-second limit that the service launched with. TikTok has increased that time limit steadily in the last year or so and it seems more than likely that 15-minute videos won't be all that far away, too.
The reasons for all of this are obvious — ad dollars. Longer videos allow for mid-roll ads, something YouTube has made great use of already. For now though, it's all down to the creators. Will they take advantage of the longer video format or will they prefer to stick to shorter clips instead?
