Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that short video platform TikTok is extremely popular across the globe now. While Instagram tried to rip-off the app with the addition of TikTok-like effects to Boomerang videos and Reels, it appears like YouTube is interested to finally board the hype train.
According to a report from The Information quoting internal sources, YouTube is working on a new feature called ‘Shorts’ that offers similar functionalities of TikTok. The feature is expected to be live by the end of the year.
YouTube will reportedly make the feature available within the app instead of launching a dedicated app. Shorts will allow users to upload short videos to YouTube and viewers will be seeing a separate feed for it.
According to The Information, this is the “most serious effort yet by a Silicon Valley tech company to combat the rise of TikTok”. In fact, YouTube has an advantage here due to its collection of licensed music and could even be a worthy opponent despite being late to the party.
In case you’re wondering, YouTube has also replicated features from other popular social media platforms in the past, YouTube Stories for instance. While YouTube Stories was considered unnecessary in the beginning, as it turns out, existing YouTube creators got the hang of it and started using it to provide updates and announcements to the community.
With YouTube’s massive active userbase, the battle between YouTube and TikTok will be legendary if the implementation is as good as TikTok. For now, TikTok will continue enjoying its popularity and only time will tell if YouTube succeeds to attract TikTok users or regain creators that recently shifted to TikTok for obvious reasons.
