While most of the social media news this week was devoted to Instagram and its terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad updates, YouTube just released an update to its “Shorts” service, a another clone of TikTok. Obviously, there is less controversy surrounding it.
Yes, Instagram Reels is not the only TikTok clone. In fact, Google has been quite proud of YouTube Shorts, claiming last month that the service has 1.5 billion monthly users (that’s pretty similar to TikTok itself).
So what do you do when you get big numbers? You commit to the bit.
Starting today, YouTube creators will be able to create shorts from their non-short videos. You know, the actual videos on YouTube. In the announcement’s official blog post, YouTube refers to these “long-form” videos.
“Now you can take up to 60 seconds of your own existing long YouTube videos and turn them into shorts using the same editing tools you know and love (text, timeline editor, filters, etc.),” says blog post .
“If you select a part of your video that is less than 60 seconds long, you can record additional videos with the short film camera and upload more videos from your gallery to make 60-second shorts if needed.
“Shorts created from [videos] will link back to the original long-form videos so that people who watch your short can also watch the original video. Importantly, only you as the original creator will be able to import your long-form videos into Shorts, as this tool is not available for other creators to use on your content.”
I guess with that last quote it’s worth specifying how YouTube shorts differ from TikTok, or even Instagram Reels.
How are YouTube Shorts different from TikTok?
Currently, YouTube shorts exist primarily as another way for creators to reach their audience. YouTube is an undisputed mastermind in the online video space: even Twitch streamers, whose audiences are primarily concentrated on Twitch, often use YouTube to store “VOD” of their streams, allowing you to watch ls after being live. Often, content creators will upload edited versions of their plays, shortened to lengths compatible with YouTube.
YouTube Shorts is, in a way, an extension of that ecosystem. If you’re a content creator using a YouTube channel, whether it’s a primary or secondary platform for your reach, you can create YouTube Shortcuts to cut your videos into much shorter, mobile-friendly clips.
They’re not perfect, and it’s obvious that YouTube is going to eat TikTok for lunch with this, but at the same time, it’s not a terrible service or idea. It hasn’t gotten the same hate as Instagram Reels, but that’s mostly because it actually serves a valuable purpose. Instagram Reels, on the other hand, pretty much forces its users to pivot to video, which is a bit difficult when your sales pitch for the past decade has revolved around photos.
You can watch YouTube shorts through the iOS and Android apps, or by clicking the “Shorts” tab next to the YouTube website.
This feature is now rolling out to all devices.