Until 2-3 years ago, videos shot vertically were evil, they didn’t work on the Internet and those who used them were insulted. Today, if you don’t have a space to collect videos vertically (and if you don’t post videos vertically), you’re nobody on the Internet.
What happened between then and now? It just so happened that TikTok arrived: the platform, controlled by the Chinese ByteDance, has quickly established itself as the most successful (not only among the youngest) and with the fastest growth rates, also thanks to a very well designed algorithm, which is able to quickly guess the tastes of new subscribers and keep them in front of the screen for a long time. And therefore, everyone chasing TikTok and his idea of short, funny and obviously vertically shot videos, which is the position people hold their smartphone in the vast majority of the time.
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Facebook changes (again) to chase TikTok
Meta, in particular, insisted even more on Stories and Reels, inserting these contents also in Facebook and somehow arriving at upset the identity and format of Instagram: born as an app for sharing basically square photos, it is definitely veering towards the use of video content. Vertically, of course.
From this point of view, the latest news (according to confidential documents, obtained by The Verge) would concern the social network created almost twenty years ago by Mark Zuckerberg: the new indications, given to the team that deals with the algorithm that manages the News Feed of the subscribers, would be to stop giving priority to the posts of friends or pages that follow, insisting more on advising to people what they might want to see. Also, Messenger and Facebook, which were together before and then separated, would be back together again. Obviously because on TikTok the messaging features are more integrated within the app.
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Over 1.5 billion people on YouTube Shorts
It remains to be seen whether all of this will work, while one thing that is definitely working (as on Italian Tech we figured it would) is YouTube Shortsborn exactly a year ago to compete with TikTok.
According to the latest data, more than 1.5 billion people would connect to Shorts, a variant of YouTube characterized by short (less than 60 seconds) and vertical videos. That is exactly the opposite of what for years has been the heart of the YouTube experience: long or very long videos and in a format reminiscent of television. Neal Mohan, YouTube chief product officer, recalled that “short videos have taken off and are now being watched for over 1.5 billion users connected every month: we know this product will continue to be an integral part of the YouTube experience well into the future. “
Last year (just like TikTok), YouTube debuted a $ 100 million fund to “reward creators” whose videos would prove capable of attracting as many audiences as possible to the platform. As indeed it happened.
And TikTok? The most imitated social network of the moment has decided to go in the opposite direction compared to its rivals: in the spring it began to allow subscribers to upload more elaborate and complex videos, increasing the maximum possible length up to 10 minutes. But without abandoning the portrait format, which continues to work great.