TikTok Launches New Fullscreen Mode to Combat YouTube

The short form video market seemed dead after Vine disappeared, but TikTok managed to not just bring it back to life but also take it to new heights. Its dominance over short form video has been made rather absolute, and it is now setting its sights on bigger fish. YouTube has had mixed results in attempting to compete with TikTok in the short form video space, and it turns out that TikTok is going into full attack mode by attempting to take YouTube on in the long form video niche as well.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that TikTok is launching a new feature that may pose a serious challenge to YouTube’s control over long form content. After rolling out the ability to post videos that are up to ten minutes long, TikTok is further inching into YouTube’s domain by allowing for horizontal full screen video viewing.

This allows for a much more immersive viewing experience than might have been the case otherwise, and it could facilitate an influx of creators who want their content viewed in such a manner. Many creators want users to utilize a horizontal full screen because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up bringing their content into a proper display format. Allowing for this could give TikTok a bit more competitiveness and allow it to take YouTube on in a way that wasn’t possible in the past.

NEW! TikTok FULL SCREEN mode
😮📺

Great for long-form content… huh ByteDance? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/46HMveag4W

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) December 8, 2022

In spite of the fact that this is the case, some are hesitant about the massive change that this will bring to TikTok’s platform. TikTok introduced a new way to watch videos, one that was based on a vertical format and was highly conducive to scrolling through a feed packed with content. This feature will alter that dramatically. Users will no longer be skipping from video to video, but would instead have to stay on a single video for a longer duration. It will be interesting to see how this update plays out and whether it impacts YouTube’s future decisions.

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