Unlike Stories, the feature will not expire after 24 hours and is aimed at giving creators a way to engage with their audience without resorting to posting full length videos
After Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, it seems like it’s YouTube’s turn to take on Snapchat’s Stories format. In a post on YouTube’s official blog, the company’s Senior Product Manager, Roy Livne, announced that the YouTube will introduce a similar feature called ‘Reels’. However, instead of disappearing after a day, Reels would not expire. Further, users would be able to link to other YouTube videos and add “YouTube-y Stickers” to their Reels.
A report by TechCruch notes that the idea behind Reels is to let creators express themselves and engage fans, without the need to post a full length video. Creators would be able to post videos up to 30 seconds, then add filters, music, text, and so forth.
“Reels are YouTube’s spin on the popular “stories” format, but designed specifically for YouTube creators. We learned that you want the flexibility to create multiple Reels and have them not expire, so we’ll give you those options. We’re also bringing creator-focused features like linking to YouTube videos and YouTube-y stickers. Just like we did with Community, we’ll be experimenting with a beta version of Reels to learn and improve the product before expanding to more creators,” stated Livne. TechCruch also notes that Reels would be posted to a separate tab on the creator's channel. So viewers will get to choose if they want to watch these videos or not. However, YouTube told the website that if users engage with Reels, then it will be taken as a signal that the user might want to see the videos more often. Hence, it could trigger an appearance on the user’s home page as part of recommendations
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