YouTube is testing the integration of longer video clips into its popular Shorts feed, aiming to build on the format’s success. Although this move might seem contradictory, the goal is to enhance viewership across all content types by leveraging the 70 billion daily views Shorts generates, as reported by Social Media Today.
The platform explained that these experiments are designed to help viewers discover content more easily across different formats and lengths. As part of the trial, viewers might see a mix of video formats, including long-form videos appearing where Shorts are typically found, such as in the Shorts Feed, or new feeds dedicated to long-form content.
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YouTube’s strategy seems to focus on using the popularity of Shorts to promote a wider range of video content. However, there are concerns about how horizontally formatted long-form clips will fit into the vertically aligned Shorts feed, which could potentially disrupt the user experience if not executed smoothly.
Shorts has become a significant engagement driver for YouTube, as users increasingly prefer shorter, snackable videos. It makes sense to align recommendations around this format to boost overall viewership, but user reception of these changes remains to be seen.
YouTube also mentioned that long-form video clips viewed in the Shorts Feed might be counted as Shorts in YouTube Analytics, a detail that could cause confusion for creators. However, this might be part of YouTube’s broader strategy to transition more viewing into a full-screen, vertically-aligned experience, with these experiments laying the groundwork for that shift.
