TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing app has been banned in India after the Indian Government announced its decision of banning a bunch of Chinese apps. Once the app has been barred in India, several app developers have commenced designing TikTok clones to fill the gap that the massively prevalent Chinese app has left. After Instagram, the Google-owned online video streaming platform YouTube has officially announced that it will soon launch its TikTok-like service namely ‘Shorts’ in India. As of now, this service is still in a beta stage.
YouTube has made this announcement through a blog post. It reads, ‘This is an early version of the product, but we’re releasing it now to bring you – our global community of users, creators, and artists – on our journey with us as we build and improve Short.’ YouTube Shorts is the upcoming app similar to TikTok videos. This app enables the users to make a 15-seconds video or less than that. Some of the features offered by this YouTube Shorts app include clips that come with various editing options like speed control, countdown, timer, and more.
Before rolling out YouTube Shorts, Instagram has earlier launched Reels, an app similar to TikTok in India. The tech giant, Google also joined the bandwagon to create a TikTok clone. With YouTube Shorts, the users can shoot short clips, catchy videos, and interesting short-form videos using their mobile phones. As per the latest update, this service will be soon available for Android and iOS platforms.
At the beginning of the beta stage, the YouTube Shorts app will provide users a ‘multi-segment camera’ to assemble multiple video clips. It also provides an option to record music from a library of songs. The company announced that the app will provide more tracks to the creators and artists. Another report is that the firm will augment the icon to create YouTube Shorts in the middle of the homepage of the app displaying a Plus ‘+’ icon. This icon will help the users while creating new videos and eventually gains prominence.
The users who don’t have access to the Shorts camera can also upload vertical videos that are less than 60 seconds long. However, people must upload them using a hashtag #shorts in the title or the video description. These vertical videos can be highlighted on the homepage of the YouTube app. As of now, this icon is available for Android platform users in India. It is anticipated that the company will soon roll out this icon to iOS users as well.
Chris Jaffe, VP of Product Management for YouTube mentioned in a YouTube blog that the Shorts app will be expanded soon to iOS platform users and some other countries as well. At first, the company announced that it has launched Shorts service in India. The company also announced that this app will also be available to users across different countries soon. In the blog post, the company also announced that ‘We’ll continue to add more features and expand to more countries in the coming months as we learn from you and listen to your feedback.’
In June, YouTube confirmed that it has been working on a TikTok clone to be launched in India. Precisely, Google had strived hard earlier to launch social networking platforms similar to Facebook but failed to gain public attention. Now, some experts assume that YouTube Shorts might confront a similar situation soon after rolling out in India. Stay tuned to this website to get the latest tech updates, telecom news, and more.