YouTube is making creating and watching Shorts easier

YouTube has announced that in order to keep up with the meteoric rise of TikTok, they’re making it even easier for users to create and watch Shorts. 

After rolling out basic “remixing” tools to creators last year, YouTube is finally expanding its suite of tools to allow users to easily remix clips of eligible videos, rather than just audio, allowing for similar content borrowing creativity to rival platform TikTok. 

Offering users the ability to pinch a clip from “any eligible video on YouTube,” the expanded remixing options seem like an incredibly powerful tool for creators, however, there are some limitations, as, for now, you’re only able to use a 1 to 5 second segment from an eligible video.

Creators are also able to opt-out their videos from being remixed via YouTube Studio, however, by default, every single video on the platform, aside from those that are private or claimed by a third-party copyright owner, is able to be remixed. 

This expanded remixing suite will be available to iOS device users “over the coming weeks” with an Android version expected “later this year.”

Alongside the new remixing feature, YouTube is also making the Shorts video player “fully available” on the web and on tablets. This will supposedly provide the “best experience for viewing short-form content,” while also giving Shorts a spot on the ‘Home’ page as well as their own dedicated tab.