YouTube Claims Massive Popularity for Its TikTok Competing Feature Shorts in India

Google-owned YouTube seems to have made the most of India’s TikTok ban implemented last year in 2020. As per the recent blog post, YouTube’s short-form video feature aka YouTube Shorts has gained strong traction in India. The platform is currently clocking 3.5 billion views per day during its early market entry in India.

Although YouTube hasn’t provided detailed stats for the same but has 2 billion logged-in users every month. Additionally, it claims that its users watch a billion hours of video on the platform every day.

The YouTube Shorts Feature

YouTube also wrote that they are looking to expand the Shorts feature to other markets in 2021. YouTube unveiled its Shorts features last year in September 2021. Similar to TikTok, Shorts is an in-built part of the YouTube application that hosts multiple features like adding music, changing the speed of the video, and much more. However, it is strictly a short-video service with video length capped at just 15 seconds.

The YouTube Shorts perfectly caters to the audience looking for quick information without having to go through a detailed explanatory video. With the user attention span falling drastically, this feature perfectly serves the intended purpose.

Key Areas to Focus for YouTube in 2021

In her blog post, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wrote about the key areas to focus on for the platform in 2021. The platform is also focusing on new features that can give them a better growth trajectory.

• E-Commerce remains one of the major areas of focus for the company in 2021. YouTube is currently undergoing a beta-testing program, especially for creators in the electronics and beauty phase. The company is working on making it easy for users to buy products as they see in the videos. The unique and integrated buying experience could be great for channel owners as well as consumers.
• Content regulation remains on high priority for YouTube in 2021. Social media platforms have received a lot of flak for not enough regulations on fake news. YouTube is likely to work with the government on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that protects companies from liability of the content that their users’ post.
• YouTube is likely to collect additional data of its creators like gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity. The goal is to ensure fair treatment of creators coming from different backgrounds.

Popular for its long-form content, the faster growing “screen” for YouTube viewership is Television. In the last three years, YouTube has paid over $30 billion to creators, media companies, and artists.