In two years, TikTok has become a cultural force to be reckoned with. With over a billion downloads and nearly 500 million active users, the short-form video app is today dominating screens across the world and catching the attention of several tech giants. Now, YouTube has reportedly set its sights on the video-sharing network’s surging popularity.
YouTube is developing a TikTok-like section that will live inside its main Android and iOS apps, according to The Information. Simply called “Shorts,” it will feature an endless feed of brief videos posted by users. Creators will also be able to take advantage of YouTube’s treasure trove of licensed music as the background score for their videos and shoot lip-syncing clips.
Dylan Byers, a Senior Media Reporter at MSNBC, said in a tweet that YouTube CEO, Susan Wojcicki confirmed the existence of Shorts in a podcast episode with him that is scheduled to air later this month.
Quirky editing tools are an imperative part of TikTok’s appeal but it’s unclear at the moment whether YouTube will offer a similar set of features. The Google-owned video platform already comes equipped with a handful of standard cropping and annotation abilities. We also don’t know if Google will adopt the same video length restrictions as TikTok’s 15-60 second limit.
YouTube isn’t the first large-scale tech company to take on TikTok. Instagram has been attempting to replicate its success for a year now. Last year, it updated the feed of its long-form video platform IGTV to function more like TikTok, and a couple of months later, cloned the majority of TikTok’s app inside Stories under a new section called Reels. Instagram’s parent, Facebook, has also released a TikTok clone dubbed Lasso.
YouTube, which today has over 2 billion monthly active users, has gone through several changes in the last year or two. The company added the ability for YouTubers to publish Snapchat-like stories and reach out to their viewers more often through a new social feed. Therefore, it remains to be seen how YouTube will plug in another major feature without cluttering up its app. It’s also worth noting that Google’s Area 51 division, which is responsible for developing unique, experimental apps, recently launched Tangi, a TikTok-esque platform for sharing minute-long DIY videos.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?
Instagram is testing a new format for long-form videos called Features. It allows select creators to upload horizontal videos running up to 90 minutes long. Instagram has already tested the new format with creators in Brazil, and now, it's expanding to tens of thousands of creators across the US.
How will Instagram's new Features format work?