The popularity of TikTok worldwide has prompted YouTube to attempt something similar. According to a report, Google is said to have started working on this and may be launched before the end of this calendar year.
This may be a separate vertical called ‘Shorts’. The format may be quite similar to TikTok with short duration videos and the large library of music that YouTube already holds can be used by the customers to create videos and upload.
The question that the observers have on hearing this development is how Google will position these two products, the regular long format videos and ‘Shorts’. There has to be a proper strategy in place and be targeted at the right set of customers. TikTok has been found to be a fad with the youth and YouTube may want to attract the same section of the population, all over.
Some suggest ‘Shorts’ may be hived off as a separate app so that the larger YouTube app is left undiluted. However, all these discussions may turn out to be infructuous if Google does not have any such plan on the anvil, since there are no official reports on it yet.
TikTok has an interesting history; though it has been in existence since 2016, it was only in 2018 that it became popular across the world in its present form and name. It had previous names like A.me and Douyin. It permits short videos of up to 60 seconds duration to be created and uploaded. India is one of the largest markets for TikTok.
YouTube introduced a feature like Instagram’s Stories on its platform earlier. You can call this copying or strategic adaptation to public demand.