TikTok, by the end of 2021 left behind Google to become the world’s most popular website. The numbers the short-form content app was bringing were unreal. With a user base of 10 billion+ monthly users, TikTok was the reigning king of this market.
To counter this, Youtube yesterday revealed that Youtube Shorts, their own short-videos feature, now has over 1.5 billion logged-in users every month. This comes just after two years of having launched the service. If we compare both the services now, Tik-Tok announced only 1 billion monthly users.
Youtube has made it clear that while they prioritize short-form content, this will in no shape or form hurt creators who post long-form content. In fact, they recently talked about how channels that upload both long and short-form content are comparatively seeing more growth in views and subscribers than channels that only upload long-form content. This also shows how Youtube’s investment in the short-video content paid off as it is driving more and more consumers toward creators’ long-form videos as well.
The genius here from Youtube is that they came out with Youtube Shorts as a built-in feature in the Youtube app, as opposed to Meta’s Facebook which came out with their separate app, Lasso, which turned out to be a failure. Youtube capitalized on the already humongous userbase that they enjoy for a long time. This also gives viewers on Youtube the privilege to scroll through shorts if they have a little time to kill or watch long videos from the creators they like or the topics that interest them.
“While we’re still at the beginning of our journey with Shorts, we know the product will continue to be an integral part of the YouTube experience moving forward.”
Neal Mohan, Youtube’s Chief Product Officer.
YouTubers such as Rosanna Pansino, talk about how their channel’s growth has increased exponentially since she started uploading shorts as well. As a result, shorts today are the biggest source of traffic on her channel. This model is tried and tested and works well, so much so that even Facebook now has done the same and came out with reels. Tik-Tok, looking at the benefit of having both sorts of content, has now given its users the feature to upload a 10-minute video. This feature however is not differentiated as a separate product in the app.
Tik-Tok’s decision to increase its video duration is also an attempt to attract people who like to see long-format videos about varied topics. With this change, they give the users the ability to express more without the worry of wrapping it up in 60 seconds. Youtube, on the other hand, is currently using its short-form content just as a passage for its viewers to find new long video creators. Basically, an eco-system where everyone thrives.