Everyone is jumping on the popularity of short videos these days, a domain popularized by TikTok. Instagram has Reels to go against TikTok, and now, YouTube has its own rival called YouTube Shorts. The Google-owned company is launching YouTube Shorts as a beta for the Indian market first, complete with a host of new creation tools. YouTube defines YouTube Shorts as a “new short-form video experience right on YouTube for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones.” So, what’s the whole deal and what are the features it got? Let’s break it all down:

The key premise of YouTube Shorts is content creation. So, in order to make a clip, just tap the “Create” icon at the bottom of the YouTube homepage and select the “create a short” option to instantly record a short video in the mobile app. Or, you can tap on the “upload a video” option to pull up a pre-saved video from your phone’s internal storage. Talking about tools, users will get a multi-segment camera that will allow them to merge multiple clips together. There is also an option to add a song to the background by picking up music from YouTube’s vast library of content. And oh, the videos should be 15 seconds or less in duration.

YouTube Shorts also offers speed controls to let users speed up or slow down their clips for creative effects. And to save users the hassle, there is also a timer and countdown to let users capture short videos without having to hold their device in their hands. However, these are just some of the core features, and more tools for creators are coming with the coming months. YouTube is introducing a new space alongside the stories section where users can watch YouTube Shorts in a vertically scrollable format, similar to TikTok. YouTube says creators can already start making and sharing YouTube Shorts to gain an early edge. However, details about a wider availability are still under the wraps.

Source: YouTube Blog