YouTube, the world’s most popular online video platform, has just launched “YouTube Shorts”. Shorts will be Google’s new entertainment alternative to the popular social network TikTok, or similar to Instagram’s Reels.
This new feature, known as “Shorts”, will begin its beta phase in India with the idea of adding more features for its global launch.
YouTube Shorts will first come to Android and then iOS, though not immediately.
What is YouTube Shorts?
YouTube Shorts will be an online video platform, where users will be able to record up to 15 seconds of clips with effects and music. Songs can be added from the song library, which will be expanded over the next year, according to Google.
In other words, Shorts is a new short-form video experience for creators and artists who want to record short, catchy videos using nothing more than mobile phones.
How does Youtube Shorts work?
In order to access Shorts, the user will have to go to the YouTube mobile application. These videos will appear in a dedicated section within the app’s homepage and elsewhere in the app.
The prerequisite for the use of Shorts is that they are recorded in portrait format, with a duration of between 15 and 60 seconds. The camera will allow the user to speed up or slow down the recording and use a timer to record themselves and assist the mobile device.
What can be done with Shorts?
If we are not interested in a video in the carousel or want to send suggestions about its functionality, we can click on the three vertical dots that appear on the thumbnail of the short films and select the option that corresponds to what we want to do.
When we click on them, they will be played in full screen mode and will show an interface similar to TikTok or Instagram Reels.
In it we can see the buttons that tell us whether we liked it or not, at the bottom right, arranged vertically. On top of that, there is also a share button, comments and three dots that we can use to access additional options to see the description of the videos or to report them. Inside, aligned to the left, we find both the title of the video and the channel it belongs to, as well as a subscribe button. A progress bar is then displayed, which evolves as the parts are played.
In conclusion, the functioning of the short films is very similar to TikTok and Reels.
How to create a Short for the first time?
To create a video for Shorts there are two options:
- Click on the button with the + symbol on the main page, which will give you the option of uploading a video, broadcasting a live broadcast and creating a short film.
- The second option is to click on the camera icon that appears in the top right-hand corner when viewing a short film.
YouTube’s recommendations for Shorts
YouTube recommends using the hashtag #Shorts in the title or description to upload vertical videos that do not exceed 60 seconds in length.
YouTube Shorts also provide the option to customize the video recording, i.e. the speed, which can be selected between x0.3, x0.5, x1, x2 or x3, and the timer.
Using the second option, we can choose to start recording the video in 3, 10 or 20 seconds, and end the recording in a maximum of 15 seconds or sooner. For the recorded video, we can add text, use the chronological interface for minimal editing and finally give it a title, description and indicate whether it is public, hidden, private or to be scheduled.
First Youtube Shorts data
After only a few weeks of launching Shorts in India, Youtube has achieved more than 3.5 billion views worldwide every day. This new proposition was proposed to compete with TikTok, a short video platform with 700 million monthly active users worldwide.