In addition to Instagram, which launched Reels in more than 50 countries in August 2020 and thus established a competitor to TikTok, YouTube Shorts are now also coming to Germany – for the time being in the beta phase.
Just two months after the Indian government blocked quite a few Chinese apps, including TikTok, due to the Himalayan conflict, YouTube responded by launching its own 60-second video format as a test project for India and the US in September 2020.
Less features than TikTok
So far, YouTube Shorts has fewer features than TikTok.
For example, there is no function to reply directly to comments or other videos, and there is no duet function where you can create a video together with other content creators.
YouTube creation tool
The YouTube short video creation tool makes it easy for content creators to produce short videos of up to 60 seconds. The tool also serves as a rudimentary cutting and editing tool. So you can, among other things:
- Add music & sound
- Show text boxes
- Adjust the speed of individual clips
- Set timer when to start recording automatically.
Since YouTube Shorts are still in beta, the YouTube creation tool isnot yet usable in Germany.
How To Create YouTube Shorts!
- Create vertical clip (max. 60 seconds)
- Add title (max. 100 characters)
- Tagged with the hashtag #Shorts
When the YouTube creation tool is also unlocked in Germany, there will be the possibility to add music for free from a library provided by YouTube, but for personal, non-commercial use, unless the appropriate licenses are available. However, the recording of these shorts is then limited to 15 seconds.
The Good, The Bad Or The Ugly?
The trend is for the decision of what content we consume to be increasingly driven by an algorithm.
So haben wir vor TikTok und Co. noch selbst entschieden, welchen Leuten wir folgen und deren Inhalt ausgespielt bekommen.
So now we consume quite a few different content creators we’ve never heard of before in seconds. This offers especially new and smaller accounts with not many subscribers the chance to become more visible on YouTube.
The danger with YouTube shorts is the same as with Instagram reels: content from TikTok is simply copied and uploaded there, leaving little original content on the platform. Already YouTube Shorts is struggling with this issue, whether this problem will go away in the future, only time will tell.
