A new social media platform which hosts short videos of people in a creative way that gets content viewed fast around the world called TikTok recently appeared out of nowhere. This app has been used by almost everyone from music artists to celebrities especially since most people are advised to stay at home with not much to do.
FILE PHOTO: A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020.
Today, the major consumer-facing social media efforts of Google are being hosted within YouTube and it has been reported that YouTube has decided to bring a new app to life called "Shorts" which is said to be the direct competition of TikTok! Will TikTok survive should YouTube's "Shorts" come?
YouTube's decision to go against TikTok
In a report given by the Information, YouTube has been planning to put serious effort in order to counter the viral social media platform with a new product which they call "Shorts". This app will be able to exist inside YouTube for both Android and iOS clients rather than having to be an individual app in itself!
Shorts will be a collection of brief videos which are made available in a new feed on YouTube's very own application. The advantage of Shorts is that these videos can utilize YouTube's existing collection of licensed music to be the background soundtrack of the videos.
The target launch for YouTube's Shorts is approximately around the end of the year when the app has been properly developed, tested, and is made available for instant use.
The battle of content
In an article by 9TO5Google, YouTube Shorts efforts is described as the "most serious effort yet by a Silicon Valley tech company to combat the rise of TikTok." Which speculates that YouTube is trying to create leverage the already existing content creators in order to create new types of content.
With Shorts being made available inside the YouTube app itself, Google has been able to secure a wide range of built-in audience. This whole situation is quite similar to how YouTube decided to add a Stories format in order to compete with the already existing and viral Snapchat and Instagram.
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What YouTube aims to achieve
This whole edition aims to make even shorter-update like content for the channel as it lives right beside the full videos included in the Subscriptions tab. The difference between the regular videos and these stories are that Stories are only limited to a specific subscriber count.
Way back in October 2019, Google has expressed their interest in acquiring the company/app TikTok as part of their renewed social push. Google has been trying to get even more involved with social media and if their acquisition of TikTok becomes final, Google may have an even wider platform all to itself.
The successful app has suddenly came out of nowhere with celebrities and even music artists alike singing along and making fun and short cover videos of the existing background music already inside the application itself.
