YouTube Shorts, the company’s short-form video service and a direct competitor to TikTok, is rolling out globally.
YouTube says the video service will now be available in “more than 100 countries” – everywhere the video platform itself is available.
Launched in September 2020, YouTube Shorts uses 15-second videos – the same time limit as TikTok (although TikTok expanded its maximum video length to one minute and, most recently, three minutes). The service was first made available to creators in India, then rolling out to the U.S. in March 2021 and the U.K. in June.
The main advantage of YouTube Shorts over TikTok, for creators, is the ability to tap into YouTube’s massive library of audio content to include in their shorts.
Other than that, the app, which is available on both iOS and Android, allows creators to tie multiple video clips together into one-speed controls and a timer and countdown to make capturing the right moment easier. New features that are coming include automatically added captions, adding clips from the phone’s gallery to the Shorts camera, and the ability to add filters and effects, with more coming in the future.