YouTube is set to enhance its short-form video platform, YouTube Shorts, by allowing creators to upload videos up to three minutes long, beginning October 15, 2024.
This change comes as part of a significant update aimed at providing creators with greater flexibility to tell more immersive stories, moving beyond the previous one-minute limitation.
The decision to extend the video length aligns YouTube Shorts with TikTok, which introduced a similar three-minute cap in 2021.
According to Todd Sherman, director of product management for YouTube Shorts, this update reflects the growing popularity of longer short-form content, enabling creators to engage more deeply with their audiences.
The new features include not just extended video lengths but also enhanced recommendations for longer Shorts, ensuring creators' content reaches the right audience.
In response to feedback, YouTube is also introducing an option for users to "Show Fewer Shorts" in their home feed settings, allowing for a more personalized viewing experience.
To further support content creators, YouTube will implement a new template feature, enabling users to easily remix trending videos. By tapping the "Remix" button on a Short and selecting “Use this template,” creators can utiliSe popular sounds and styles, streamlining the content creation process. This mirrors similar features found on TikTok and Instagram Reels, where users can quickly adopt trending formats.
In a bid to enhance the user experience, YouTube is improving the appearance of the Shorts player and launching a new Shorts trends page on mobile.
This will assist users in discovering popular content within their region while also allowing them to preview comments directly in the Shorts feed.
Moreover, the integration of Google DeepMind’s Veo generative AI video model will further empower creators by enabling them to generate unique video backgrounds and clips. This feature is expected to add a new dimension of creativity to the Shorts format, fostering a more engaging environment for both creators and viewers.
