Rumor: YouTube is building TikTok competitor ‘Shorts’ in its own app

Google video site YouTube is rumored to be working on ‘Shorts’, a way to put short videos on the platform that are reminiscent of TikTok. The feature should come online later this year.

In Shorts, users can see a feed of videos, The Information reports, based on information from its own sources. A reporter from TV channel MSNBC confirms the information. Users can use music licensed by YouTube from major record labels to create the videos.

The Chinese TikTok relies on videos that users make, often on well-known music. Shorts from YouTube would like to do that too. Facebook has also been working on an app for some time that resembles what TikTok does under the name Lasso. That app was already released in November last year in some countries, but not yet in the Benelux.

YouTube has often adopted concepts from other social media. Stories, known from Snapchat and taken over by Instagram and Facebook, for example, have also been in the app of the video site for some time.