TikTok has announced a new feature called “Series”, which provides another monetisation channel for creators on its platform. Series lets creators put up specific premium content behind a paywall, allowing them to increase their revenue.
For those eligible, the new feature allows them to post collections that can include up to 80 videos, with each video up to 20 minutes long. The current limit for TikTok videos is 10 minutes, so the new duration is also a new introduction to the platform – making it even more similar to its competitor, YouTube, during a time when the latter is focusing on short-form content.
The ByteDance-owned company is letting creators choose for themselves how much their Series collections are priced at, which can be purchased by viewers through in-video links or through a creator’s profile. TikTok told TechCrunch that for a limited time, it won’t be taking any commission from creators for revenue earned through the feature.
This will likely mean that the company will take a percentage of the earnings in the future, but it did not disclose how much. It’s also noteworthy that Series videos still can’t include adult content as they must still abide by the community guidelines, so this feature won’t exactly compete with sites like OnlyFans.
The introduction of Series is expected given how last month, it was already reported that TikTok was working on a paywalled feature for creators to directly make money from their videos. This comes after its original creator fund, which offers a US$1 billion pool of money over three years, has been criticised for low payouts.
TikTok is reportedly revamping the creator fund to reward those who post longer videos. It might also raise the follower requirement to be eligible for the fund to 100,000, up from the 10,000 follower requirement for the current fund. The revamped fund could be launched in the US as soon as this month.
(Source: TikTok)
