Youtube becomes TikTok. The new Shorts section, officially
launched in beta in 100 countries , opens up new paths in the future of the
most famous video platform in the world. Initially launched only in a few selected
countries, it allows you to upload, edit and modify short videos in vertical
format that can then be viewed, shared and commented on by subscribers, as well
as becomes a source of income for creators, as has already been the case for
years for more classic videos. .
Google's move, which has been in the air for some time, is
not surprising and demonstrates how much the success of TikTok and its spread
among young people is radically changing the world of the internet and social
networks.
YouTok
Shorts is a section that has been talked about for a long
time. Initially launched on YouTube India as the first test, it was then
extended to other 26 countries during 2020 and then also arrived in Italy.
Users will be able to access the sections, see and comment on the videos but
also create new ones, through a classic proprietary editor that will allow you
to cut, modify, add filters and music, with the possibility of enriching
everything with audio sampled from all the videos already available on the platform.
The ability to tap into YouTube's boundless catalogIt will
certainly attract the curiosity of many, but Google seems to have every
intention of going big, offering tools that will tickle the curiosity of many
creators. Everything is still in an embryonic phase but the promises speak of
tools that will increase and of a section that will be gradually integrated and
connected with the platform.
A boundless catalog
Certainly the most interesting function is access to the
audio of all the videos already available on YouTube which, among the most
disparate songs and contents, will offer users infinite creative possibilities.
Interesting, albeit very similar to those already seen elsewhere, are the other
options available in the internal editor of Shorts. You can add texts, sample
the audio of other Shorts, add automatic subtitles, record videos up to 60
seconds and apply various types of filters.
To date it seems possible to be able to indiscriminately use
any type of YouTube video for your own purposes : the creators of the original
videos will have to make sure that these are protected and not usable on
Shorts. The audio library is also nourished, with the support of over250 record
labels from around the world who have made their material available. Infinite sources
from which to draw inspiration and tools that, according to the promises, will
gradually become more and more varied and rich, ferrying Shorts from the beta
now present to its future final version.
Integration
The keyword used by Google to describe its project is
certainly integration. Shorts for now appears as a separate section and
detached from the rest, too different from YouTube to be seen as an integral
part of it. Yet methods for making the various contents interact with each
other are already being examined . It will soon be possible, for example, to go
back to an original song or video thanks to the fragment contained in a Shorts
video, as well as to understand which creator or artist made it.
To encourage users to invest time in the new section, a fund
of 100 million dollars has been allocated which will be used for the
monetization of short videos in the next two years. It is still to be
understood how the funds will be distributed, which countries will affect and
what the criteria for accessing them will be.
Verticality
The project, still in progress, appears for now as a simple
section within the classic YouTube home page. Turning on you have the clear
feeling of having entered TikTok and, consequently, on all those similar
services that imitate it, Reels of Instagram on all. The classic horizontal
videos are replaced by videos in vertical format that scroll vertically and are
proposed one after the other without interruption, but with the possibility of
quickly switching between one and the other with the most classic of vertical
movements of the thumb.
Clearly, everything is designed to be usable mainly via
smartphone, with all the apps that will offer a special tab to access the new
section. It is a completely new world on YouTube, a social network which,
although always based on the use of videos, has always started from a
profoundly different underlying philosophy. However, times seem to have changed
and even one of the oldest internet giants of the dawn is forced to adapt to
the fashion of the moment.
Will it be a success?
In India, the results of the first tests on Shorts were more
than satisfactory, with over 6.5 billion views per day , a sign that this type
of philosophy works, allows rapid usability and, above all, gives everyone the
opportunity to become content creators. . YouTube has always been a platform
designed for creatives, but it started from a longer and more elaborate concept
of creation: uploading videos to YouTube is a long process, which must pass
from an upstream editing job, from the use of external programs, from a study,
albeit minimal, of editing techniques.
YouTube spreads the video, from a showcase, but the
practical creation of the video must pass through the hands of the users.With
Shorts we want to streamline the process, creating a platform that also allows
you to create and edit , that streamlines the most "boring" part and
that gives everyone the opportunity to become creative, albeit with a very
different, less "reflective" video format. "and more"
disposable.
A very powerful tool
This is a paradigm shift of no small importance but also an
opening of Google to new ways of using and creating content. YouTube will
officially open its doors to all those users who until now had been far from
its world, to all those creators who have made their fortune with videos in
vertical format, offering its boundless experience to a whole new world, to new
ones. sponsorships and new sources of income. Even those who didn't want to
have anything to do with it will be so driven to take a good ride on the
platform, to explore its creative methods, to use it to create their own
videos. To date, no other service can offer such a huge library of audio and
video content from which to create your own.
If in terms of editing you do not have much available yet,
it is in the library from which to draw that YouTube could build its fortune,
in years of uploaded videos, songs, films and so on and so forth. On Youtube
there is really everything and that everything could be the basis for potentially
infinite short contents, which could become a godsend for all young creatives
of the last era of social networks . If this will be enough to make Shorts a
consolidated reality among the young and the very young, it is still too early
to say. Google seems to believe it, ready to feed the network yet another
"different" version of TikTok and YouTube yet another momentum
towards the future .
