Google is testing new Carousel feature for TikTok and Instagram videos
2020 was the year of short videos. The popularity of short video content has been steadily rising over the last few years, but it experienced a massive spike during the second quarter of 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. TikTok, in particular, benefited from this spike in short video consumption. With everyone stuck at home and in need of good sources of entertainment, people had more time to browse through the Internet and consume tons of video content, with TikTok’s popularity soaring to new heights.
If you’ve been browsing through social media over the past few months, then you’ve probably seen some, if not all, of the short video clips highlighting people creating Dalgona coffee, breaking apart ube cheese pandesal, doing the latest dance crazes and voiceover challenges, and many, many more! In fact, short video content has been so successful that Instagram created a counterpart of its own called Reels, while YouTube launched Shorts. Other social media platforms are also reportedly developing their own features to showcase short video content, and hopefully, further engage with their respective user bases.
Now, it seems that Google is taking steps to further promote short video content on its search engine, and TikTok and Instagram are among the first to experience the new feature. The tech giant is reported to be testing out a new search feature for mobile devices that would give both Instagram and TikTok videos their own carousel to make searching easier for users looking to find fresh, new content. Think about how much more content you could discover once this feature gets released! Oh, the possibilities!
Google had tested out a feature earlier in 2020 that showcased a short video carousel in the Google Discover tab, letting users see a roster of short video content. The original version of the feature highlighted only platforms that were owned by Google like YouTube and Tangi, but the recent update will include content from both TikTok and Instagram. This expansion was first reported by Search Engine Roundtable via a tweet by Brian Freiesleben.
This new feature from Google will help users browse through as many short videos as they want and watch until their eyes pop out of their sockets or they run out of content to consume, though the former is more likely to happen than the latter. By 2022, it is expected that 82 percent of all consumer Internet traffic will be made up of video content. Imagine—billions and billions of data for videos just waiting to be explored!
A spokesperson for Google confirmed to tech news portal TechCrunch that this new carousel feature is being tested out on mobile devices. However, it is still in its early stages and is not readily available to all users. We will see the full extent of its functionality once it is officially rolled out to the public. Until then, we’ll just have to make do with browsing for content through good ol’ Instagram and TikTok.
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