Shorts beta U.S. expansion & important updates for Shorts creators

Question

We know many of you have been eagerly waiting to get your hands on the Shorts camera so you can start creating Shorts right from your phone! Over the next several weeks, we're expanding our Shorts beta in the U.S with a new camera and a few updates to how Shorts work on YouTube. 
To access the Shorts camera, open the YouTube Mobile app (make sure you’re using the latest version!) and tap the “+” icon at the bottom of your screen when you open the app. If you see an option to “Create a Short” that means you can start creating Shorts right from the app. 
Don't have access to these new Shorts tools yet? You can still try out Shorts by uploading vertical videos that are 60 seconds or less and including the hashtag #Shorts in the title or description. We’ll be rolling the Shorts camera out to everyone in the US over the course of the next several weeks, so stay tuned! 
With this beta expansion we’re also sharing some important updates to how Shorts works on YouTube.
We’ve been experimenting with a variety of new places where Shorts can be viewed on the platform to further integrate Shorts into your experience on YouTube. We’ll continue to add more places to view Shorts on YouTube over the course of the next few months but wanted to highlight a few of them today.
Customize your channel with a new section to highlight your Shorts: When customizing the layout of your channel, you’ll now see an option for “Shorts”. This breaks out Shorts into their own section that allows you to better highlight them on your channel. Over the coming weeks, this section will be automatically added at the bottom of your channel page if you have any vertical videos that are 60 seconds or less uploaded on your channel. If you’d prefer not to have Shorts displayed in their own section of your channel, you can customize your channel layout in Studio. Learn more here.
Watch Shorts more easily from your Subs feed on mobile: We’ve shared some information about this previously when we were experimenting with this late last year, but now all viewers can watch Shorts more easily straight from the subscriptions feed on their mobile app. Viewers will now be able to easily identify a Short from a creator they’re subscribed to, tap to watch the Short, then swipe up or down to watch more short videos from all the creators they’re subscribed to.
Experiment: New places for Shorts on the mobile app: We’ve previously shared some details about this experiment a few months ago, but now we're continuing our tests with some viewers in the U.S. For those who are in the experiment, you’ll either see a Shorts icon in place of the Explore tab (with the Explore icon moved to the top row), or you’ll see a Shorts icon in place of the Cast icon on the top row of the app (casting can still be done while watching a video). This experiment is only available to some users in the U.S. using the YouTube app on Android and iOS while we gather feedback.
We’re also making some changes to how Shorts work with our existing notification system for uploads and livestreams. 
Previously if a viewer had selected to receive “All notifications” when tapping the Notification bell , they would have received a notification for every livestream or upload (including Shorts), up to 3 a day. We’re now changing this so that viewers will only receive personalized Shorts recommendations across all channels they’re subscribed to, and not for every Short that you upload. This means that uploading Shorts to your channel will not contribute to your daily bell notification limits. We’ll be implementing this change over the course of the next few weeks. 
As always, please share your feedback about any of these features with us here or in the comments below!
Camilla (TeamYouTube)

Camilla (TeamYouTube) · Accepted Answer

YouTube Shorts is now available to everyone in the U.S.
We're very excited to announce that the Shorts camera is now available to everyone in the U.S.! You can start creating short videos right from the YouTube app and try out some of the latest features that we’re rolling out, such as:
60 sec recording: When recording a video using the Shorts camera, you can now see the option to change the maximum duration of your recording from 15 sec to up to 60 sec. Note: recording with music from the YouTube library is still limited to 15 sec.
Shorts filters: You can add different filters to your Shorts in the recording and editing screens to color correct your Short, and we’ll continue to bring more filters and effects over the coming year.
Create Shorts with audio from across YouTube: We’re slowly rolling out to a small group of people the ability to use audio from videos across YouTube to create their own Shorts, learn more here.
We also introduced some updates to improve the Shorts viewing experience to help people discover more Shorts on YouTube:
Updates to notifications: Based on creator and user feedback, and as announced previously, we’re changing how notifications work for Shorts and now subscribers will only receive personalized Shorts recommendations across all channels they’re subscribed to, and not for every Short uploaded. Learn more about personalized notifications in the Help Center.
Captions: From the playback settings, people can now enable automatic or manual captions while watching Shorts, if available. 
Shorts tab: To help people discover more short content on YouTube, we added a new Shorts tab in the bottom row of the mobile app. With this, Explore can now be found as the first topic at the top of the home feed.

Explore is a place to discover what YouTube has to offer— from up and coming creators, to trending videos, and destinations for popular topics. We introduced topics on Home to help you easily discover content and creators you may be interested in, so Explore is a natural addition to this row since it helps you find trending content from creators you may not have seen before. We’ll soon be directing everyone to this new place for Explore with in-app reminders as we make this adjustment.
Camilla (TeamYouTube)