KOLKATA: After TikTok was banned in India, the short format video app category has seen a rapid explosion of small and big players attempting to fill the void. While the first wave of these players were the homegrown apps, the second wave is seeing interest from the tech giants. YouTube is rolling out a new short-form video creator called YouTube Shorts in India.

It is launching a beta version of the new feature in India which includes a new camera and a handful of editing tools that will be rolling out over the course of the next few weeks. YouTube will continue to add more features over the coming months. The new platform will let people make 15-second videos.

“This is an early version of the product, but we're releasing it now to bring you — our global community of users, creators and artists — on our journey with us as we build and improve Shorts. We’ll continue to add more features and expand to more countries in the coming months as we learn from you and listen to your feedback. Here are more details on what to expect,” YouTube said in a blog post.

For android users in India, users will see the “Create” icon has moved to the middle of the bottom navigation bar to make it easier for them to create videos right from the YouTube app. 

Read more coverage on India’s short video ecosystem 

Recently, Instagram has launched the short video platform Reel to fill the vacay created by TikTok. It has been able to divert the media spends but has not created an impact like TikTok yet. Now, time will say how it pans out for YouTube which has created cultural phenomenon across the years.