YouTube Announces New Tools for Creating Shorts

YouTube announced several new tools for Shorts, which Rene Ritchie, YouTube's Creator Liaison, and Johanna Voolich, YouTube’s Chief Product Officer, discussed in more detail during a sit-down. The new tools include:

• Add Yours Sticker: Add an Instagram-like sticker that prompts viewers to respond.

• Auto Layout: Automatically pans, zooms, and crops a long-form video into a Short.

• Text-to-Speech: Allows creators to narrate the text they add to a Short.

• Stylized Captions: Add and edit captions with different fonts and colors.

• Remix A Remix: Remix a Short that has already been remixed.

In addition, YouTube is considering allowing creators to share Shorts longer than the current 60-second limit.

Why It Matters: YouTube is giving creators an array of tools to make creating Shorts easier and more accessible. The standout feature is the Add Yours Sticker, as YouTube joins TikTok in adding its iteration of the feature that originated on Instagram. This could help YouTube create more community-driven Shorts by bringing people together around trends.

If YouTube extends the Shorts limit to 90 seconds, it would benefit creators repurposing short-form videos from Instagram and TikTok, as they wouldn’t need to cut down videos exceeding the current 60-second limit. However, this change could also create an identity crisis for YouTube by blurring the distinction between short-form and long-form videos.