Short-form Content

Short-form content (also known as short-form videos) are short videos, often from movies or entertainment videos, that are published on platforms like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and others.

Short-form content has become popular among young people, especially those of Generation Z and Alpha, shaping modern internet culture. Short-form content gained some popularity in the 2010s before becoming even more popular in the 2020s, especially with the creation of platforms such as TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, etc.

Most short-form content today is usually shown as a vertical video up to a few minutes long (3 minutes maximum for YouTube Shorts content ). They can contain snippets of videos taken out of context and made as memes. Sometimes short-form content can be used to attract the public to the user's other accounts or their other long-form contents.

On the Internet

Short videos became popular in the 2010s. Snapchat started allowing users to share 10-second videos in 2012. Vine, which was launched in 2013 and restricted videos to a maximum length of six seconds, helped short-form videos achieve mainstream popularity and gave rise to a new generation of public figures such as Kurtis Conner, David Dobrik, Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, Liza Koshy, Shawn Mendes, Jake Paul, Logan Paul, and Lele Pons. Instagram responded to Vine's popularity by adding the ability to share 15-second videos in 2013, and has since expanded its video functionality with numerous additional features, including Reels.

Following Vine's closure in 2017, most of its notable users began making longer videos on YouTube. After TikTok merged with Musical.ly in 2018, TikTok became the most widely used short-form video app and has since become one of the world's most popular apps. In 2020, Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann launched Vine's intended successor Byte (later renamed Clash and then Huddles). In 2021, as a response to the ever-increasing competition presented by TikTok, YouTube launched YouTube Shorts to host videos up to a maximum length of 60 seconds, later extending it to 3 minutes in 2024. YouTube Shorts collectively earned over 5 trillion views within 6 months.

Business models of short video platforms

Advertising revenue

Advertising is still the most basic profit model of short video platforms. Platforms achieve precision marketing through information flow advertising, short video interstitial advertising and brand cooperation promotion. For example, TikTok Ads allows brands to deliver targeted ads based on user interests, viewing behavior and social interactions to increase advertising conversion rates. However, as users' tolerance for advertising decreases, platforms are exploring more interactive and immersive advertising formats, such as AR filter ads and brand challenges.

Live broadcast rewards

The live broadcast function of short video platforms has become an important source of income for content creators. Users can reward anchors through virtual gifts while watching live broadcasts, and the platform will extract a certain percentage of the share. Douyin and Kuaishou in China, as well as Twitch and YouTube Live in the West, have adopted similar models. However, the live broadcast reward model is greatly affected by regional culture and regulatory policies, and may face policy restrictions in some countries.

Membership subscription

Some short video platforms have launched membership subscription services, such as YouTube Premium and TikTok’s Live Subscription. Users pay a certain fee to enjoy ad-free, exclusive content and higher interactive rights. This model provides a stable source of income for the platform, but it still plays a supporting role in the short video ecosystem.

E-commerce live streaming

E-commerce live streaming is one of the key models for the commercialization of short video platforms. It combines the entertainment of short videos with the convenience of e-commerce, forming a business logic of "content is marketing, interaction is transaction". The process is first content creation and product display. The anchor or brand will introduce the product through live streaming, including trial, evaluation and promotion information. The second is real-time interaction. Users can interact with the anchor through comments, likes and questions to enhance the sense of trust in purchase and allow consumers to gain an immersive purchasing experience and emotional value in interpersonal relationships. The anchor can display the product in a variety of ways, such as product close-ups, trials, promotions, etc., and eliminate consumers' concerns and reservations through words, enhance their social presence and provide a positive emotional experience. Finally, one-click purchase and instant transaction. Users can directly click on the product link in the live broadcast to jump to the purchase page, shorten the decision path and improve the conversion rate.

Development trend

The Chinese market is in a leading position in the field of e-commerce live streaming. Platforms such as Douyin have formed a complete live e-commerce ecosystem. The sales revenue of various types of live broadcast e-commerce will reach one trillion yuan, and cultural and tourism enterprises are paying more and more attention to live broadcasting, demonstrating the huge potential of live e-commerce. Moreover, Douyin e-commerce relies on precise recommendation algorithms to provide brands and individual merchants with a stable source of traffic, enabling small and medium-sized merchants to achieve efficient sales. Although e-commerce live streaming has achieved great success in China, it still faces challenges in promoting it in the international market. However, some platforms are actively trying, such as TikTok Shop: TikTok took the lead in promoting the live streaming sales model in the Southeast Asian market, and piloted "TikTok Shop" in the UK market, allowing brands and influencers to sell goods through live streaming. There is also Amazon Live: Amazon launched the live streaming shopping function, combined with the platform's strong supply chain capabilities, trying to introduce live streaming shopping into the European and American markets.

Challenges and future development

Although the prospects for live streaming e-commerce in China are very broad and Chinese people already consider it a part of their daily lives, there are many difficulties in promoting it globally. Western consumers have a low acceptance and adaptability to "live streaming shopping" and are more accustomed to the traditional e-commerce model. And payment methods, logistics services and after-sales systems need to be improved to match the instant transaction needs of e-commerce live streaming. In the future, with the advancement of AI recommendation algorithms, the development of cross-border e-commerce and the improvement of the social media ecosystem, e-commerce live streaming is expected to become more popular in the global market and become one of the core profit models of short video platforms.

See also

*Timeline of online video
*List of Internet phenomena
*Internet meme
*Media clip
*Screencast
*Video evidence
*Video sharing
*Quoting out of context
*GIF

References

{{Authority control

Internet broadcasting
Video