YouTube has planned to launch a new feature similar to the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok.
The feature will be called “Shorts” that will allow people to upload brief videos into a feed inside the mobile app, much like TikTok. Through this feature, the users will also be able to make use of its large collection of licensed music that is housed by YouTube Music.
Although, YouTube has not officially announced in which month it will launch the feature but the platform has been working on the project since October last year and but it confirmed that the feature will be launched by the end of this year.
The feature is called “Shorts,” and will live within YouTube’s existing mobile app, according to The Information. It seems the feature will mimic to concept of TikTok: a feed of super-short videos that act as an alternative to longer vlogs and clips that appear on YouTube.
With nearly two billion downloads, TikTok has become the go-to launchpad for memes and internet culture since it was launched by Chinese-based company ByteDance in September 2017. When TikTok debuted in the US just under a year later, it became the next best thing for creators yearning for a replacement for Vine since Twitter shut it down in 2016.
It should be noted that many US companies and startups have launched apps TikTok before, but they have failed to diminish the popularity of the app. Facebook released a TikTok competitor in November 2018 named Lasso, but it did not get the popularity neither it was used by the majority.