Google is taking advantage of India’s ban on TikTok by launching its own short-form video platform, YouTube Shorts, in the country, the company has announced.
The new feature will mimic many of TikTok’s most popular features, allowing users to make and post 15-second videos with built-in creative tools encouraging them to add licensed music and more.
“Music for these videos will be available through in-product music picker feature.The picker currently has 100,000s of tracks, and we’re working with music artists, labels, and publishers to make more of their content available to continue expanding our catalog,” YouTube said.
YouTube Shorts won’t, yet, exist as a standalone app.Instead, the service is being bundled into the main YouTube app for Indian users, where it will appear with a prominent “create” button.
Google’s attempt to steal users from TikTok comes after Facebook tried the same, launching a new feature, Reels, built into Instagram.Like Shorts, Reels does not yet have a standalone app but is heavily promoted in the main Instagram app.Neither US company has yet tried to clone TikTok’s algorithmic “For You” feed, however, instead preferring to rely on their own discovery tools for pushing content out to users.
