YouTube Shorts To Launch In US Beginning In March

The launch of YouTube Shorts in the United States beginning in March will provide mobile creators with new technologies and support, YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan wrote in a Wednesday (Feb. 17) blog post.

“Every year, increasing numbers of people come to YouTube to launch their own channel,” Mohan said in the post. “But we know there’s still a huge amount of people who find the bar for creation too high.”

For that reason, Mohan said that the company is working on its Shorts short-form video technology that allows users to shoot quick videos with just their phones.

Mohan said that users can presently access Shorts in beta in India. He also noted that YouTube will start expanding the beta to the United States in future weeks, “unlocking our tools to even more creators so they can get started with Shorts.”

Mohan also said that the count of Indian channels harnessing Shorts creation technologies has increased by over three times as of the start of December, while the YouTube Shorts player is currently garnering over 3.5 billion daily views around the world.

The news comes as TikTok briefed advertisers on its collection of new 2021 functionalities that will bolster its social commerce offering for users, PYMNTS reported. One of those technologies lets the most influential users provide links to merchandise and net commission on the sales they direct.

The variation on affiliate sales lets users profit from any merchandise they endorse instead of just the ones with which they’ve inked official sponsorship arrangements.

Furthermore, the new content encompasses a livestream shopping functionality: TikTok’s mobile-centric answer to QVC that will let viewers purchase what they view with only a couple of taps.

“Culturally, TikTok is well placed for livestreamed commerce to capture the dissolving distinction between content and commerce because it doesn’t feel as polished as other platforms,” Jack Smyth, creative technology officer at WPP’s Mindshare told the Financial Times.