This feature was announced last year, and it was launched several months ago as a beta version. Users around the world have since been able to watch “short films”, videos of a maximum length of 60 seconds, but this video creation and publishing tool (which in particular allows adding text and audio or visual effects) is not available. Not yet available everywhere.

After India last year and then the US in March, more than two dozen countries have gained access since June (UK, Canada and Latin America). And on July 14th, it will be rolled out in all countries in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region, Google’s subsidiary told AFP.

The platform is taking advantage of this continued global reach to enrich this new pillar of its strategy.

Now short film creators can use audio clips from YouTube videos. This will facilitate the production of some potentially viral videos, such as those where we interact with other content shared on YouTube or where we apply a recipe or tutorial.

At the same time, other new features are aimed at making it easier and encouraging to watch short films, which already exceed 6.5 billion views per day, according to the video-sharing network.

Finally, the group announces that its Support Fund for Short Video Makers, which awarded $100 million for 2021 and 2022, and is already in India and the United States, “will soon be launched for the rest of the world.”

If shorts specialists see YouTube’s response to the brazen success of TikTok, which was praised by young people, then the Google subsidiary asserts for its part that it is a “natural” development of its offering, linked to the improvement of video technologies on mobile phones.

Instagram, his parent company Facebook, has also taken short video formats with Reels, which debuted last summer.