Short form content is not new, but few platforms have been bigger than TikTok. Wanting to capitalize on this growing trend, competitors have emerged on existing numbers and platforms like Instagram are struggling to adapt. After trying Shorts (vertical 60-second videos) in India, YouTube is now making the feature available to users in the U.S.
The announcement was made a few weeks ago by Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CPO, in a blog post detailing YouTube’s plans for the year. Shorts gained a lot of momentum in India, accounting for more than 3.5 billion daily views worldwide – an impressive number, considering that it has only been officially available to Indian creators until now.
A beta version of Shorts will be visible on carousels in the homepage feed and in the recommended videos section, as shown below.
The short format video creation tool is not as feature-rich as TikTok, but it does have some basic features, including speed control, music and a stopwatch for hands-free recording. YouTube is constantly experimenting with new ways to make it easier to produce and upload content – recently, it got a Create button just below the video player and replaced the Chromecast icon in the top bar of the app with a Shorts button.
