After gaining massive success from the launch of Reels in India, Facebook is going to follow its age old tradition and launch a similar feature on its main app as well, with Indian users being the first to get it. The company has been testing a new in-app short-video feature in India on its main app.
The feature can be found in a separate section in your newsfeed under the name ‘Short Videos.”
Not surprisingly, the feature is very similar to TikTok. The likes and comments can be found in the bottom right corner with a create button on the top, pressing which will open up the Facebook camera. To switch between videos, users will have to swipe up, just like in TikTok.
Facebook already tried to launch a separate short video app like TikTok called Lasso earlier this year. However, the project was shut down as it failed to attract customers. Nonetheless, this was when Mark Zuckerberg had the genius idea of bringing TikTok to Instagram (much like his genius idea of bringing Snapchat to Instagram) and announced Reels. The service launched in India just a few days after TikTok was banned due to privacy concerns, and has managed to become quite successful over a very short interval.
As we know, TikTok was banned from India in June and is also facing potential bans in the U.S. Thus, much like Reel’s expansion to U.S., the company might launch the ‘Short Videos’ feature on its main app in the U.S. as well. India is a good test bed for such consumer heavy apps, considering the vast internet-using population. Tiktok, before being banned, had well over 200 million users in India itself/
“We’re always testing new creative tools so we can learn about how people want to express themselves. Short-form videos are extremely popular and we are looking at new ways to provide this experience for people to connect, create, and share on Facebook,” Facebook told TechCrunch.
