After early reports of a new YouTube video editor, the company officially announced it and talked about how it works.

The tool allows the average person to edit videos in the cloud. No software installation is necessary.

Users can combine multiple videos they’ve uploaded to YouTube, to create longer pieces. They can trim the beginning/end, add soundtracks from YouTUbe’s AudeioSwap library (which includes tens of thousands of songs), and create new videos without worrying about file formats (to be published to YouTube without having to upload).

"The editor is ideal for merging single, short clips into a longer video," YouTube says

in a blog post. "For example, you can transform clips from your vacation into a video travel diary set to music, or create a highlights reel from footage of your last basketball game."

"It’s also great for trimming a long video down to the moments you really care about. Say you’ve uploaded a wedding ceremony — beautiful event, but do you really need to see all the guests shuffle in? The video editor lets you easily remove unwanted footage so you can capture just the moment when they say ‘I do.’"

Some examples of how people have used the editor can be found here. YouTube says it will be adding more features to it in the future.