With TikTok staring at an uncertain future, rivals X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky have come out with vertical video feeds similar to those popularised by the China-based platform.
Both announcements came on Sunday evening after TikTok, the popular video-sharing platform, went dark briefly late Saturday. The Chinese-owned social media service parent company ByteDance had taken it offline in accordance with an impending ban in the United States.
TikTok resumed its services in the United States following an announcement by President Donald Trump, granting a 75-day extension to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to find a US-based buyer. But the fate of TikTok in the US is still uncertain.
Bluesky said in a post that they are joining "on the action" and that the mobile version of the app now has a new video button that can be accessible from the Search tab. Similar to TikTok, users will find a new "Trending Videos" section, which they can pin to make it appear on the home screen or add to their list of feeds.
"We had to get in on the video action, too," said Bluesky.
Posts with videos in the regular feed won't, however, immediately reroute to constantly scrolling videos like Instagram Reels do.
Users are provided with a three-dot menu in addition to the like, share, comment, and repost buttons. This menu allows users to copy or translate captions, mute threads, words, and tags, as well as inform Bluesky whether they would like to watch similar films or not.
Just an hour before Bluesky unveiled its new videos tab, Elon Musk-owned X also revealed its own vertically scrolling video feed. It can be accessed by tapping on the play button-like icon that resides next to the Grok icon. Right now, the new feed is only visible to those in the United States.
Apart from Bluesky and X, Meta-owned Instagram is also capitalising on TikTok’s uncertain future. The platform recently changed its profile grid from square to rectangular.
Even as the move has drawn a lot of flak, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said that they are “going to improve the ability to customise those thumbnails” and a new future that lets you directly upload posts to the grid.
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