YouTube Shorts could get ads soon
Introduced about two years ago during the mass rise in popularity of short-format videos, Shorts was meant as a way for YouTube to compete with TikTok and Instagram’s Reels. However, not being able to generate revenue, Shorts videos only served as smaller content pieces for creators to attract audiences to their channels and larger videos.
That could however, change soon. As per a report Bloomberg, Google Chief Business officer Philipp Schindler has told investors about YouTube Shorts testing ads on the small videos. The ads mainly include app installs, but the company is also reportedly trying out other formats of advertisements.
“While it’s still early days, we’re encouraged initial advertiser feedback and results,” Schindler reportedly said on the earnings call for Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company.
What form the ads on Shorts videos will take remains to be seen.
This isn’t the first time Shorts have been monetisable, as a report XDA Developers points out. The company offered limited access funds programs for creators in the past. This included a USD 100 million fund which paid creators USD 10,000 dollars per month for creating short videos for the platform.
Rival app TikTok, though banned in India, offers a similar creator fund that rewards popular creators in regions like UK, Italy, France, Germany, and Spain.
In other news, Google executives recently said that YouTube saw a slowdown in growth of direct-response ads on its video site, even though Google had previously said that Apple’s privacy changes had a small impact on YouTube.
