In a bid to take on YouTube, TikTok is revamping its desktop platform with the addition of several new features. The company announced on Thursday that its web-based experience features a new modular layout, refreshed For You feed, a new Explore tab, immersive full-screen LIVE gaming streaming, and a floating player.
The social network’s new web layout features a repositioned navigation bar that’s designed to allow for a more immersive and distraction-free viewing experience that’s more in-line with the mobile version of TikTok.
In addition, game streamers can now “go live” in portrait or landscape mode. Users on desktop will see a horizontal view, while mobile users will be able to simply rotate their phones to also view in horizontal mode. With this change, TikTok is coming for both Twitch’s and YouTube’s dominance in the game streaming market.
TikTok is also introducing a new “Collections” feature that lets users organize their favorite videos into custom categories. The idea behind this feature is to make it easier to find and revisit saved content at a later time.
For instance, you could group all of your favorite recipe videos into one collection, while organizing your favorite DIY video into another. The feature is similar to YouTube’s “Playlists” feature that also lets you save videos to revisit them.
Desktop users can now also access a floating player exclusively on Google Chrome. The flexible floating window keeps TikTok visible on top of other windows, allowing users to multitask while still watching content. It’s worth noting that it’s been possible to do this with YouTube videos for quite some time now.
TikTok has brought the in-app “Explore” page to desktop, as well, allowing users to view a curated collection of content based on their interests.
“Our users interact with TikTok in many different ways, which is why we’re excited to introduce these web app updates,” said Cody Puckett, Product Manager at TikTok, in a blog post. “By enhancing our desktop capabilities, we aim to bring TikTok’s handheld magic on desktop, providing an engaging experience with greater flexibility so you can enjoy TikTok anytime, anywhere. As TikTok evolves, we remain committed to innovating for our community and ensuring the platform is accessible for all.”
While TikTok is known as a mobile-first platform, it makes sense for the company to make desktop viewing more convenient for its users as it continues to challenge YouTube, and now Twitch. While TikTok is the leading short-form video platform, it still lags behind YouTube overall, which has 2.5 billion active users, which is why the company has been releasing features to challenge the Google-owned platform.
Over the past few years, TikTok has been increasing the time lime for videos on its platform, and has even been spotted testing 60-minute uploads at one point. TikTok initially launched with support for 15 to 60-second videos, but now allows users to publish 10-minute videos.
TikTok has also launched video-scrubbing thumbnails and tested horizontal full-screen mode on mobile, both of which are designed to make it easier to watch long-form content.
TikTok says over a billion people worldwide use TikTok for entertainment and discovery, and that it’s always exploring ways to enhance its platform and meet the changing needs of its users.
