SCH.cx – Tik Tok Competitor YouTube Shorts Beta Will Launch in the U.S. in March. YouTube Product Officer Neal Mohan announced today that YouTube is preparing to launch a beta version of TikTok competitor Shorts in the United States starting in March. In a blog post introducing new YouTube features in the coming months, Mohan said that the YouTube team will let more creators use Shorts in the United States.
According to Mohan, the YouTube team’s Shorts test in India has been successful, and the feature has been in India for several months. He said that since December, the number of Indian channels using the Shorts authoring tool has more than tripled, and the YouTube Shorts player currently has more than 3.5 billion daily views worldwide.
Reports that YouTube is developing a TikTok competitor first appeared in April 2020, but YouTube did not launch Shorts in India until September. After TikTok’s explosive popularity, the company is trying to figure out how to expand its creator base and 2 billion monthly users to mobile-first products, and Instagram is doing the same. Shortly before YouTube launched Shorts, Instagram launched Reels, causing the world’s two largest technology and social platforms to race to catch up with TikTok.
YouTube is trying to get Shorts into the hands of creators and users as soon as possible, which is not surprising. By November 2020, TikTok’s growth has continued to soar, and the number of users has tripled from 2018. Like other companies, TikTok’s business has also been helped by the new crown epidemic, allowing people trapped at home to participate in the endless new short videos and make their own short videos. It is predicted that TikTok’s monthly active users will exceed 1 billion this year.
All of this helps explain why YouTube is looking for new ways to provide creators with features that will allow them to continue making videos for the platform instead of turning to TikTok or Reels altogether). Mohan’s blog also announced new monetization features, including applause, which will allow fans to purchase a one-time applause animation that appears at the top of the video. Creators can get a certain percentage of income from the applause of each purchase.
