Google Plans to Launch YouTube ‘Shorts’ to Counter TikTok

Published Date : Apr 09, 2020

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Major Highlights:

YouTube plans to break the Monopoly of TikTok, plans to release its rival called YouTube “Shorts”.
The app may hit the market by the end of this year.
The new application will be launched as a built-in feature within the YouTube app.

Google plans to break the monopoly of TikTok by launching YouTube “Shorts”. Currently Google, consumer-facing social media exposure is limited to only YouTube. To spread its roots and to counter TikTok, the market leader in short video sharing apps, YouTube is all set to come up with YouTube Shorts by the end of this year.

What is TikTok?

Developed by ByteDance, a Beijing based Chinese company TikTok was launched in 2017. It is used worldwide by millions of people to create short videos of lip-syncing, comedy, dance and talent.

It is believed to be one of the fastest growing social media platforms that the world has seen in recent times. It enjoys a rich customer base with over 3 million users getting added daily.

It is a video sharing app and allows its users to create 15 second short videos polished with catchy music, filters, special effects, animation and much more. You can review, like, follow and comment on these videos.

TikTok app is available for both Android and iOS users.

What Google Plans To Do?

As its answer to TikTok, Google is planning to release “Shorts”. The to be introduced feature will be a part of the existing application and will live inside the main YouTube app. It will not be a standalone tool and will include a feed of brief videos.

As an added advantage, YouTube users will be able to use their existing dictionary of music tracks and add them as background music to their videos.

With the lunch of “Shorts”, the Silicon Valley tech giant Google aims at combating the growth of TikTok. We are anticipating that our current user base will be a great advantage for us and will help in leveraging our revenues, Google said.

It further added that by releasing it as a part of our existing YouTube app, we will get a ready base of users as our audience.

In addition to this Google also quoted that “the launch will be quite similar to the launch of “Stories format” which we had earlier released to compete with Instagram and Snapchat”. The Stories format is usually used by channels to create shorter content in the latest updates which are available in the Subscription tab. They are placed adjacent to the full video. Unlike videos, a limited number of subscribers can access these stories. Google plans to follow the same strategy with “Shorts” in the initial phase of the launch.

Last year, there were few rumors that Google is planning to acquire TikTok, but nothing materialized.

For now, we will have to wait and see, if YouTube’s “Shorts” will be able to give TikTok a tough competition and become a global king.

Prachi Dani

Prachi Dani is a technical content writer who specializes in areas of science and technology. She is highly up to date with technological transitions and transformations. Writing is not her passion but the only thing that carries satisfaction in life. If not writing, you may find her engrossed playing action games on her treasured smartphone.