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PALO ALTO, USA – Google announced on Monday that it will launch a new service that allows users to use their smartphones to record, edit and post videos of up to 15 seconds on YouTube, its video-sharing website.
A trial version of the service will be available first in India in a few days. With TikTok, a video-sharing app from China, facing strong headwinds, the number of similar services is increasing.
Called YouTube Shorts, the new service will be integrated into the YouTube smartphone app. It will combine video and music, as well as offering features such as adjustable playback speed, a timer, and a feature that counts the remaining time while shooting.
Google plans to listen to feedback on the trial version in India, then improve the service and offer it in other countries and regions. In an official blog post, YouTube Vice President Chris Jaffe emphasized that the first YouTube post was an 18-second video, saying that “short user-generated videos were born on YouTube.”
But among short video apps, China’s rapid growth of TikTok stands out. In July, there were 689 million monthly users worldwide, according to ByteDance, its operating company. TikTok is popular with users in their teens and twenties, but authorities in the US and India are moving to ban the app as they increasingly view it as a security threat.
The use of alternative apps increased shortly after India banned TikTok in late June. According to US research company Sensor Tower, in the three weeks immediately after the ban, downloads of three alternative apps like Roposo jumped to almost 22 million, or 2.6 times more than the previous three weeks.
With the competitive landscape changing significantly, more companies are trying to win users over with short videos. In August, Facebook also added “Reels” to Instagram, its photo and video sharing app. Even among the newer players, including Triller and Byte, the number of users is growing.
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