After the ban of TikTok app in India, Instagram was the first of the big social media platforms to launch a TikTok type feature on their app, called Reels. This week, YouTube too announced a feature in the App called Shorts. The YouTube Shorts feature has only been launched in India so far.
In a statement released by YouTube Spokesperson, he revealed, “Over the next few days in India, we’re launching an early beta of Shorts with a handful of new creation tools to test this out. This is an early version of the product, but we’re releasing it now to bring you – our global community of users, creators, and artists – on our journey with us as we build and improve Shorts. We’ll continue to add more features and expand to more countries in the coming month.”
All you need to know about the new YouTube Shorts:
YouTube Shorts enables users to create 15-second video clips, the feature lets users select whatever music they like, control the speed, allows handsfree recording, consists transitions and beauty mode too. ‘Hmmm.. reminds us of TikTok!’
On updating the YouTube app, you will see a + sign in the middle of the taskbar, tap the button and you are good to go.
The Application’s layout after adding ‘Shorts’
A section of the YouTube users has been critical of the design addition but ensuring that the Shorts remain distinguished is likely the only way that it’s going to have any real impact. YouTube is with its new feature is all set to cover the void left by TikTok in the phones of Indian users.
In June 2020, the Indian government first announced its ban on 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok. YouTube would be the first one to develop a similar feature to fill the gap in the Indian market after Instagram’s recently developed feature called Reels. Following the ban, there were already many contemplations of YouTube launching its own TikTok Clone app.
TikTok was the biggest rival for YouTube in the Indian Market, both the applications allowing users to create innovative content and enabling them to reach a wider audience, sparked multiple controversies, between the companies as well as among their most frequent users.
Some of the most famous and followed YouTube and TikTok users fell into a public battle earlier this year, creating splits between netizens. TikTok, before being banned had around 200 million Indian users and YouTube has more than 265 million active users in India.
Instagram and YouTube are both leading social engagement applications now.
Due to such big competition between the two, it only seemed plausible at that time, that YouTube would be the only one taking an opportunity to include TiktTok’s features, via Shorts, in the application, but before the feature was made live, Instagram announced the launch of a feature called ‘Reels’, with similar features as YouTube, just a week after the ban.
Instagram has over 100 million users in India and hence, when compared to YouTube and TikTok, Instagram’s role was not as prominent in video making. But after launching ‘Reels’, Instagram somewhat started filling the gap that TikTok created in Indian Market. Although, the official numbers have not been provided by Instagram when it comes to increased engagement, but one thing is certain that it has definitely increased.
Youtube Shorts, was launched a bit later, which helped Instagram’s Reels to gain momentum in the Indian Market. Given the huge user base of Youtube, the Shorts feature is supposed to be more popular than reels, but it is not certain.