To take on YouTube, Tiktok has revamped its desktop platform with several new features. On Thursday, the company announced that the web-based experience will feature new modular layouts, updates for feeds, new exploration tabs, immersive full-screen live game streaming and a floating player.
The new web layout for social networks has a relocated navigation bar designed to allow for a more immersive and distracting viewing experience along the mobile version of Tiktok.
Additionally, game streamers can now be “live” in portrait or landscape mode. Users on the desktop will see a horizontal view, while mobile users can also simply rotate their phones to view them in horizontal mode. With this change, Tiktok is coming for both the Twitch and YouTube advantage in the game streaming market.
Tiktok also introduces a new “collection” feature that allows users to organize their favorite videos into custom categories. The idea behind this feature is to make it easier to find and reconsider saved content later.
For example, you can organize your favorite DIY videos into different collections, while grouping all your favorite recipe videos into one collection. This feature is similar to the “Playlist” feature on YouTube. This allows you to save and revisit the video.
Desktop users can now access floating players only in Google Chrome. Flexible floating windows allow users to display Tiktoks above other windows, allowing users to multitask while watching content. It’s worth noting that I was able to do this with YouTube videos for quite some time.
Tiktok brings an in-app “Explore” page to the desktop, allowing users to view content collections curated based on their interests.
“Users interact with Tiktok in many different ways, so we’re excited to showcase these web app updates,” said Cody Puckett, product manager at Tiktok, in a blog post. “We aim to bring Tiktok’s handheld magic to the desktop by enhancing desktop functionality, providing a more flexible and engaging experience that allows you to enjoy Tiktok anytime, anywhere. As Tiktok evolves, we are still committed to innovating our community and ensuring that everyone has access to the platform.”
Tiktok is known as a mobile-first platform, but as it continues to challenge YouTube, it makes sense to make desktop viewing more convenient for users. Tiktok is the leading short form video platform, but it’s behind YouTube as a whole. With this having 2.5 billion active users, the company has released features to challenge Google-owned platforms.
Over the past few years, Tiktok has been increasing the amount of videos on its platform, and has even been discovered to be testing 60-minute uploads at some point. Tiktok initially launched with support for 15-60-second video, but users can now publish 10-minute videos.
Tiktok also launched a video scrubbing thumbnail and tested horizontal full screen mode on mobile.
Tiktok says that over a billion people around the world use Tiktok for entertainment and discovery, and are constantly looking for ways to enhance their platform and meet the changing needs of their users.
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