YouTube has unveiled a range of exciting new features for its short-form video offering, YouTube Shorts, in response to the increasing competition from TikTok and Reels. During a recent video update, YouTube’s Chief Product Officer, Johanna Voolich, unveiled a range of new tools designed to assist creators in perfecting their short videos. These tools include features that can effortlessly convert longer videos into shorts, as well as tools that inspire creativity, such as the “Add Yours” sticker, which encourages others to share their own content in relation to a creator’s video.
It’s great that Short provides accessible tools for anyone to become a creator, including myself. I appreciate how easy it is to build a short with these tools,” Voolich mentioned before the introduction of the new tools and features.
Two of the options concentrate on the manner in which you wish to showcase the audio and speech in your video. You can utilize one tool to effortlessly generate captions that can be easily customized with various fonts and colors. Additionally, another tool offers the option to select from a range of four voices to narrate or speak your text aloud. 
Creators now have the opportunity to utilize two brand new effects to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the beloved game Minecraft, in addition to the “Add Yours” sticker. There is a new feature in Minecraft called Minecraft Spring, which allows you to create videos within the Minecraft world. Additionally, Minecraft Rush introduces a fresh mini-game that can be enjoyed within the Shorts player. The objective is to showcase your tapping skills by swiftly clearing the blocks and then sharing the video with others to determine who is the fastest.
Nevertheless, the latest tools that enable YouTube to make the most of its extensive and valuable library of public videos are especially intriguing.
Creators will soon have access to a new auto-layout tool that will make it even easier to transform their regular videos into shorts. Expanding upon the previous release of tools for transforming long-form content into shorts, the latest auto-layout feature, currently accessible on Android, will effortlessly follow the main subject of the video while converting it into a short. According to YouTube, the video will be automatically and dynamically panned, zoomed, and cropped for you.
Yet another tool will allow individuals to creatively modify an already modified piece of content. Remixes are short videos that cleverly integrate segments from other users’ YouTube or Shorts videos. As long as the video is public and the creator hasn’t chosen to restrict its reuse, these remixes can be created. YouTube has expanded its range of video remixing tools, allowing creators to now make remixes from existing remixes. This new addition provides more flexibility, as creators are no longer limited to using only long-form or short videos as their source material.
Voolich mentioned that short videos currently receive 70 billion daily views, which is the same number that YouTube announced last September. This might be a cause for concern. In addition, there were suggestions that YouTube might consider experimenting with short videos that exceed the usual 60-second limit.
“It appears that there are differing opinions on the desired length of shorts, and we are currently working to determine the optimal cutoff point,” Voolich stated.
Several new features are now becoming available, with some already rolling out and others set to launch in the near future, according to YouTube.
