YouTube has launched a beta version of its Shorts feature in the United States, which is set to compete with the Chinese social media service TikTok.
YouTube began testing the beta version of the service in India a couple of months ago. The video hosting reported that the number of Indian channels that used tools to create short video clips has more than tripled since the beginning of December, and the number of daily views of Shorts has exceeded 6.5 billion worldwide.
“We're introducing our YouTube Shorts Beta to the U.S starting today, as we continue to build the experience alongside our global community,” said Todd Sherman, YouTube Shorts product lead.
Shorts is currently in beta, but YouTube has been working on it over the past year, so a stable version is on its way, and we may expect its release soon, even though Google is known for keeping its products in beta for years.
According to YouTube, Shorts videos are getting about 3.5 billion views daily, so it's no surprise that the tech giant decided to integrate this feature into its video service. Besides, the plans for implementing this feature were announced last year.
YouTube also announced that it plans to implement more features in the coming months, including the ability to add text to videos and the ability to mix audio from other Shorts. YouTube is also working to help people make money with Shorts, Sherman said.
Some US users have already started getting access to the Shorts platform on YouTube. Global deployment is expected soon.
By introducing Shorts in the US, Google may well take most of TikTok's audience, including content creators who live in India and the United States, since users in these countries have limited access to TikTok.
Kay Lee
TikTok has become a phenomenon over the past couple of years and has made the short video format popular again, as Vine once did. Therefore, multiple social media platforms have followed suit and decided to integrate a short video format into their apps.
Netflix added Fast Laughs to its iPhone app earlier this month, which allows you to quickly scroll through funny excerpts from Netflix content. Facebook-owned Instagram reacted to the popularity of TikTok by introducing its own short video format called Reels last August. And in November, Snapchat rolled out Spotlight, a public feed of content generated by users.
