YouTube is easily one of the most popular video sharing services out there. However, over the last year, TikTok from ByteDance with its short and creative video format has seen a massive rise in its user base. A report now claims that YouTube is working on its own TikTok rival which it plans to release by the end of the year.
YouTube's answer to TikTok will be called "Shorts" and it will be available inside its existing mobile app. Shorts will let creators post short videos on YouTube that will be available in a new feed. Like TikTok, Shorts will allow creators to add background music to their videos. YouTube already has a licensing deal with all major publishers and it will be relying on that for this feature.
As per the report, this is the most serious effort by a "Silicon Valley tech company" to date to tackle the growth of TikTok. YouTube will rely on its millions of creators to generate hype around Shorts. Since the feature will be available directly inside the YouTube mobile app, it will also benefit from the existing user base of over 2 billion active users.
YouTube had previously jumped on the Stories bandwagon in a similar fashion. The company added the Stories feature to its mobile app allowing creators to post ephemeral content on the service which is shown in a different feed.
Apart from Google, Facebook is also working on its own TikTok rival called Lasso. The company is quietly testing the app in Brazil. However, it has been nearly 1.5 years since Facebook first launched Lasso but it is yet to expand the availability of the app worldwide.
Source: The Information
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