Instagram and YouTube have woken up to the TikTok threat. Which means that there are now 3 phone-first platforms available for Place Reports: TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. 

You decide to try them out, starting with YouTube Shorts, because you don't want to contribute to a platform controlled by the Chinese government (TikTok), and YouTube is more how-to than Instagram, which appeals to you.

You want to share a platform with all those helpful plumbers and electricians you've come to rely on. 

Whatever the platform, you have to admit, the vertical video idea is appealing: Why blog boringly on when you can choose short and punchy?

You walk down to the harbor. 

The next day you point your vertical lens at a snag next to your house.

Later you row out to nearby Betty's Neck, with a drone.

The next day: another YouTube Short, from a different floating platform. 

You don't like the way YouTube Shorts displays on the Web, with those clunky bars on either side of the vertical frame.

Not good, right?

But otherwise YouTube Shorts looks workable. You decide to stick with it. 

Instagram can wait. TikTok? Honestly, you hope you never have to hang out there.