Image: YouTube
Aside from testing live videos in Shorts, YouTube is rolling out new features to help you make Shorts videos easily and creatively. One of the features, currently in testing, allows you to transform a horizontal YouTube clip into a vertical Short by zooming and cropping the original video.
Another feature, called suggestions, helps you to replicate the audio and effect from a video you like. This is similar to how TikTok and Meta’s Reels let users reuse audio and effects from other videos. But YouTube’s version will also match the audio time stamp to the original clip.
Starting today, you can also record a video side by side with another clip using a feature called Collab. This feature resembles TikTok’s Duet. It offers different layouts and works with both Shorts and regular YouTube videos.
YouTube has been trying to catch up with TikTok’s popularity in short-form videos. To attract more creators, YouTube recently made it easier for smaller channels to monetize on the platform by lowering the eligibility criteria for some features of the YouTube Partner Program.