Short-form video-making platform TikTok is reportedly getting a Fire TV application in devices across France, the U.K., and Germany. Fire TV users can download the app from the Amazon Appstore.
The app will enable viewers to watch content from the ‘Following’ and ‘For You’ feeds of the service. In addition, the app also has a ‘Discover’ page to assist users in searching for trending content.
TikTok’s Fire TV app launch comes along the heels of its app launch on Android TV and Google TV in February 2021, and on Samsung TVs in 2020. As of now, the apps will be exclusively available in Europe, but the company has apparently revealed that it is working on introducing the apps to more markets.
In the meantime, TikTok introduced an app named ‘More on TikTok’ on Fire TV devices across the United States in 2020. That app is restricted to a curated selection of trending videos instead of providing personalized feeds.
TikTok’s TV app launches are experiments for the platform to widen its audience reach and enable it to take advantage of the premium rates related to TV-based advertising. The TV app launches also coincide with the video platform’s venture into the long-video format. TikTok started allowing all users to post videos up to three minutes in duration since the beginning of this month.
TikTok is developed around quick swiping through videos shot vertically on mobile, which poses challenges for these TV apps. Using a remote is relatively less efficient than a touchscreen interface and any vertically shot video takes up a small part of the middle section of a landscape TV screen.
For the record, TikTok, also known as Douyin in China, is a video-sharing platform owned by China-based company ByteDance. It is used for making various short-form videos, across myriad genres from entertainment to educational. The duration range for videos posted on TikTok is between fifteen seconds to three minutes.
Source credits:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/12/22573707/tiktok-fire-tv-app-uk-france-germany-smart-tv