Tumblr TV becomes available to everyone as an alternative to TikTok

In 2015, the microblogging service Tumblr introduced Tumblr TV, a "search engine for GIFs with full-screen viewing."

All this time, almost 10 years since its launch, Tumblr TV has remained an experiment in Labs. But now, with TikTok likely to be banned in the U.S. and demand for alternatives growing, the company has decided it's finally time for a full-fledged release of its own service - after it seems that on January 19, the day TikTok was banned, Tumblr saw a 35% increase in iOS installs and a 70% increase in new users joining Communities.

As a result, Tumblr TV received support for short videos and moved from an experimental project to a standard service. However, despite the many improvements it has received during its time in the Labs, Tumblr TV is still far behind TikTok in terms of both functionality and usability - so its future success depends heavily on what kind of support it gets from developers in the near future... and whether TikTok is finally banned in the United States.