YouTube begins testing new shorts carousel

While Google has a strong foothold in the advertising business, its online presence is also powered by its Workspace app suite, Google Drive cloud storage, Pixel series of phones, and consumer applications such as YouTube. The latter is important because it is one of the most popular entertainment apps on Android and the largest app featuring user-generated video content. But the platform’s recent focus has shifted to Instagram-like short-form videos called Shorts, and it’s just discovered a new carousel to promote these clips.

related

YouTube: AP guide to Google’s video sharing service

Master the world’s largest video sharing platform

YouTube Shorts was introduced nearly four years ago in 2020, shortly after the controversy surrounding ByteDance-owned app TikTok. Short videos were integrated into his main YouTube app to drive user retention, as he was gravitating towards other short video content such as Instagram Reels. In just a few months, Shorts videos were everywhere: in a dedicated tab in the YouTube app, in the horizontal scrolling shelf on the homepage, and even on televisions when no one seemed to be asking for them.

Today, Google revealed that short videos are viewed an average of 70 billion times every day, and more than 25% of channels in the YouTube Partner Program earn money from short content. However, the short has always been his mobile-first effort, featuring vertical videos that you can swipe up to see the next reel if you don’t want to watch the entire 60-second clip. Therefore, it is not suitable for large screen devices such as TVs or his PC, where a large part of the screen space will remain unused.

Google still actively promotes content in big-screen formats like the web version of YouTube, but I found a shelf of short videos in a place that just didn’t fit.

YouTube becomes more aggressive with short videos on the web

While watching videos on my desktop using the YouTube website, I noticed a new element for shorts in the vertical column of recommended videos on the right. Just below the first recommended video, you’ll see previews of three short clips with arrow-shaped buttons on the right, tempting you to scroll horizontally instead of vertically to see more recommendations. Ta.

Recommended old layouts for YouTube videos (left); New short shelf placement between recommended videos (right)

If you switch to full-width theater mode in the player controls, you’ll see that the short shelf simply moves down, permanently connecting the insert to the recommendations sidebar on the right. At least the shelf is hidden from view when you’re watching a video in theater mode, but otherwise the big, tall thumbnails can be quite distracting. You’ll also see “Shorts” branding at the top of the shelf, and most of the recommended clips will be from channels you subscribe to or watch.

At first glance, this shelf seems a bit distracting, and perhaps even unnecessary, considering you don’t even have to scroll through the web homepage to see the Shorts video shelf. And then there’s the whole notion that YouTube appears to be pulling viewers away from long-form content with this move. Having clips from the same creator on the Shorts shelf may seem fair until you realize that the creator is likely making more money from sponsored segments or traditional video monetization. not. than short.

This seems like a limited experiment, or perhaps a slowly rolling out change, but my colleagues on the Android Police team aren’t aware of it yet. Either way, it’s about time YouTube stopped competing with long-form videos and his TikTok-style clips and incorporated short videos into separate apps or microsites on the web.