YouTube Shorts presents an unlimited stream of content in a vertical feed, similar to its rival apps like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. In an effort to increase user engagement, Google frequently tests new features, much like the standalone YouTube web and mobile apps. The YouTube team has now announced one such new experiment that will soon be
available to a select number of Android and iOS users. With this feature, users will be able to use a comment from a video they are currently viewing to make a new Shorts video.
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When one browses through the support page, they can come across details about this experiment. As per YouTube’s support page, this feature is being defined as “viewer-created Shorts featuring comments.”
This test comes with limited accessibility and a few restrictions. First off, YouTube says creators won’t be notified when new
material is generated utilising a comment from their uploaded video. However, creators cannot control whatever comment their viewers choose to turn into a Short. No notification will be sent to the original comment’s author either.
Furthermore, the user who created the new Short will also be able to discover it on their channel’s home page. On the Android and iOS platforms, only a “small percentage of viewers” will be able to see this test enabled. It’s unclear what this new experiment would look like because the support page didn’t include any screenshots.
Although creators have little influence over which comments become Shorts, they can prevent this from happening by turning off comments on their videos, according to the YouTube support team. It’s too soon to say whether this experimental feature will ever be made available to more people. Given that YouTube makes it apparent that not all of its
experiments are made public, the fact that this one is, could be a sign that more people will be able to access it in the future.
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Previously, YouTube was also testing a feature that let users watch video at twice the speed. According to YouTube’s
experiments page, users can long-press the player to automatically set the playback speed to 2x. On a mobile device, users can take part in the test by simply pressing anywhere on the screen with their finger until a message that reads “Playing at 2x speed” appears at the top of the window. Additionally, the function is available online.
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