Audiences are fond of shorts of 60 seconds. These videos not only entertain but also market a product or convey a message. YouTube started shorts in India in 2021.The videos uploaded to YouTube as shorts grew dramatically in 2022. These are consumed by 2 billion people globally on a daily basis. The product becomes exciting to both the viewers and creators. Shorts have revived interest in culture. There is appreciation of sharyri and poetry. These provoke interest in science and GK. Advertisers utilise shorts to pitch their products to the users. The format thrived after TikTok, the Chinese app which was banned in India in 2020. Shorts provide an opportunity of monetisation worth $8-$12 billion by 2030. YouTube introduced shorts first in India.
India is a different market on account of its diversity. As there are many languages, content creation is a challenge. There are shorts of superheroes, pop culture and comics. These resonate with the audiences.
YouTube continue to invest in shorts making them more accessible to their viewers. They encourage mobile content creators. Some shorts are of 15-seconds duration. Some shorts extend to a 15-minute video. There are 15-hour live streams too. The format could be modified to satisfy the creative requirements. It cannot be held back by format limitations. Viewers too love to watch videos in different formats.
YouTube Partner programme has been simplified to allow easy earnings for creators. If a creator has 1000 subscribers and the short video gets 10 million views over the past 90 days or is viewed up to 4000 hours over past 12 months, the creator will be eligible for payments from YouTube.
Meta’s Reels, Chingari, Roposo, Moj are some other apps which compete with Shorts.