TikTok continues to turn the tables on its competitors, who have been pushing to copy its key features, with its own copycat tools and options designed to maximize engagement in the app.
TikTok’s latest experiment on this front is a YouTube-style horizontal full-screen display option, providing a whole new way to view TikTok clips. The company has confirmed to TechCrunch that users chosen to be part of this test will see a button on square or rectangle videos in their feed. If they tap on that button, the video will expand horizontally to take up the whole screen. TikToks are famous for being short vertical videos, and creators still have to put a “turn your phone” message at the beginning of theirs if they filmed in landscape mode. If the company does launch this feature, they wouldn’t have to do that anymore, and other creators might be more inclined to film landscape videos. Of course, a wide release depends on testers’ response to the feature, among other factors.
The company is taking big steps to capture audiences and directly compete with YouTube. Just this year TikTok extended its maximum video length to ten minutes. On the other hand, YouTube is doing its best to rival TikTok with its Shorts, and allowing creators to earn revenue with them.
However, it is unclear how the feature will be received by TikTok users, especially since the unique vertical video scroll was the reason behind the platform’s popularity, which has been imitated by other social media companies as well.
