Shorts & Vertical Video
Short-form video
Also called: short form
What makes something short-form is the surface it plays on more than its runtime. Clips start automatically in a vertical feed, one after another, and the viewer can leave with a thumb flick at any second. YouTube Shorts now runs up to three minutes, raised from one, so the length boundary has moved twice already and will move again. Packaging works differently too. In the swipe feed no thumbnail is shown before playback, so the first frame of footage carries the load a thumbnail carries elsewhere, and the opening second is where the whole thing is won or lost.