YouTube Shorts: A New Way to Watch & Share Content

Credit: YouTube

Looks like TikTok can’t take a break. YouTube is about to enter the social game.

The online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google announced its newest feature, YouTube Shorts.

Shorts is a new short-form video experience for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones, which is its competitor to TikTok.

An early beta version of Shorts was launched mainly in India with a handful of new creative tools to test this out and it is now available to the global community of users, creators and artists.

Here’s what you can expect to see when using the platform’s new feature:

  • Create

According to YouTube, Creation is at the core of short-form video, and they want to make it easy and fun to create Shorts.

YouTube Shorts allows you to utilize different creation tools such as:

  • Automatically add captions to your Short
  • Record up to 60 seconds with the camera
  • Add clips from your phone’s gallery
  • Add basic filters to color correct your Shorts, with more effects to come in the future
  • A multi-segment camera to string multiple video clips together
  • The option to record with music from a large library of songs that will continue to grow
  • Speed controls that give you the flexibility to be creative in your performance
  • A timer and countdown to easily record, hands-free

They also mentioned that YouTube Shorts is an ongoing work in progress, and may continue to add more tools in the future.

Credit: YouTube
  • Get discovered

YouTube is also working on growing a community on YouTube through Shorts, connecting and entertaining over 2 billion viewers each month.

Tweaks and improvements to the YouTube algorithm is also happening on a regular basis to help out and encourage creators.

  • Watch

Using YouTube shorts doesn’t always mean you have to be a content creator or “YouTuber”; you can also simply be a “Watcher.”

The YouTube homepage has a special section for short videos that lets you easily swipe vertically from one video to the next, making it easier to watch videos.

  • Remix

Earlier, YouTube previewed a new feature that will allow you to remix audio from videos across YouTube.

At the end of the day, YouTube is a major platform that has helped an entire generation full of aspiring creators and artists, that have turned YouTube into a career and entertained many.

The whole Shorts format just seems like another TikTok clone, and we’re not entirely sure what the feature’s edge is compared to the competitors yet. We do know that the platform is working on big things for creators and monetization initiatives, such as the $100M YouTube Shorts Fund that was launched today.

We’ll have to wait and see what kind of creative spin YouTube can bring to the table. 

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