YouTube has stepped up its efforts to compete against Instagram and – now – TikTok with its latest feature: Shorts

Another copy of TikTok – Instagram had initially thrown down the gauntlet with Reels last month – Shorts allows people to create 15 second clips set to music.

According to Variety, YouTube Shorts will debut starting in India over the next few days as an “early beta” with a “handful of new creation tools,” according to Chris Jaffe, YouTube VP of product management. India had banned TikTok in June over security concerns. YouTube’s entry into the short-form video content realm reinforces the trend towards diversifying video creation, since people are spending more time watching videos compared to other forms of social media content.

Tech Crunch has highlighted that “The multi-segment camera lets users string together multiple video clips into one short clip. The other controls enable YouTube creators to be more creative than if they simply pressed a “record” button. YouTube will introduce a new watch experience that lets you swipe through YouTube Shorts vertically — also, just like TikTok. The company had already added a new row on the YouTube homepage for watching short videos, and now the new watch experience will make it easier to watch that content and discover new short videos, too, YouTube says.”

YouTube launched the new feature in India in a bid to take its share of the void left after the ban. This makes sense on one hand since YouTube is the go-to platform for most video content (check out the stats below), but on the other it feels like it’s scrambling to keep up with its rivals.

It would be better if YouTube focused on coming up with more innovative features or offerings on its platform from within because it looks like it’s scrambling to keep up with other platforms – whether new or existing – and that’s not a good look for it.