YouTube rolls out its short-video offering 'Shorts’ globally; to tackle TikTok for category supremacy

YouTube is rolling out ‘Shorts’, its short-video offering across the world in a bid to take on category leader TikTok.

Shorts was first launched in India last September (2020) and then to over 20 countries including the United States in May this year (2021).

Unlike TikTok, Shorts does not have a separate app but is part of YouTube’s large ecosystem. Please note it is in its beta phase.

In May this year, we saw the introduction of the YouTube Shorts Fund, a $100M fund distributed over the course of 2021-2022. YouTube’s blog post about this fund also mentioned:

“Each month, we’ll reach out to thousands of creators whose Shorts received the most engagement and views to reward them for their contributions. We’ll also ask these creators to share their feedback with us so we can continue to improve the product experience.”

“The Shorts Fund is not limited to just creators in the YouTube Partner Program. Creators will be eligible to participate if they create original content for Shorts and adhere to our Community Guidelines.”