YouTube creators are the heart and soul of the platform, and we want them to always be able to fulfill their most ambitious creative goals. To give them every opportunity possible, we’ll continue to invest across our multiple formats: Shorts, Live, and video on demand (VOD). And in the months ahead, we will bring even more engagement and monetization options across all three formats.
Short-form content is incredibly popular - YouTube Shorts have now enjoyed over 5T all-time views. Creators and artists of all stripes - from Jake Fellman and Lisa Nguyen to BTS and Marina Sena - have seen the power of Shorts to connect with fans around the world with astonishing speed and scope. In 2022, we’ll continue to improve the product and make it easier to create videos. Building on a feature we introduced last year that lets you remix audio from videos across YouTube, we’ll introduce new capabilities that empower creators to express themselves even more - new video effects, editing tools, and more. And to help Shorts creators engage with their audience more personally, we’ll also introduce the ability to reply to individual comments by creating a Short.
We also launched the YouTube Shorts Fund last year to start rewarding creators for their work. While this was just a first step, we’re already helping a new generation of creative entrepreneurs. In fact, over 40 percent of creators who got a check from the Fund last year weren’t previously monetizing their content on YouTube. In the coming months, we’ll start to test other ways to make money on Shorts — like exploring new ways for Shorts creators to build branded content through BrandConnect, integrating fan-funded features like Super Chat into Shorts, and bringing the ability to shop directly from a Short.