YouTube announced this morning that YouTube Shorts has now also launched in the Netherlands. In recent months it was already possible to watch Shorts videos in the Netherlands, but it was not yet possible to make Shorts from smartphones. As of today, short videos can also be created and shared from phones in the Netherlands. Videos can be up to 1 minute long.

YouTube Shorts was announced in September 2020 and available in 26 countries to date. As of this week, the feature can be used in 100 countries, YouTube says. The rollout for all Dutch users starts today and should be completed on Wednesday.

Similar to TikTok

The function is a competitor of Tik Tok, which became a global hit with short videos for smartphones, including music and playing automatically. Users can quickly place music and effects on their video footage using the YouTube Clip feature on their phone.

The videos of the shorts can be viewed through a special row on the YouTube home page and their own tab in the YouTube apps. Users can scroll vertically to the next video while watching shorts, similar to TikTok. They can also quickly search for songs used in the shorts they watch.

Reuse songs and audio

YouTube Shorts users can use popular music as well as audio from other YouTube videos in their movies. Creators can indicate if they don’t want their audio to be used in shorts. YouTube says it has agreements with more than 250 record labels for the use of popular songs in shorts, including Universal, Sony, Warner and Merlin.

Short film users can also merge multiple video clips, set image speed, add text, and have their video automatically subtitled. In addition, they can use a series of “basic filters” on the images. Todd Sherman, YouTube Shorts Global Product Manager, promises more filters and new features will be available soon. “We know it takes time to get this right. This is just the beginning,” Sherman said.

$ 100 million for shorts makers

TikTok has gained popularity in the last year. The Chinese movie app now has more than 1 billion active users around the world. In several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, TikTok has already surpassed YouTube in the average monthly amount of time users spend on the app.

YouTube says that Shorts’ videos currently get 6.5 billion views a day. To ensure that the best-known video makers start with the short films, YouTube has created a special fund, which has a total of 100 million dollars (84 million euros) available to pay to the ‘creators’. YouTube pays creators of popular shorts based on the number of viewers and interactions. Competitors TikTok and Snapchat also pay influencers directly in a similar way. This is how you roll Snapchat a million dollars a day looking for viral videos on their Spotlight platform.