The Next YouTube Update – New Video Page

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: March 12th, 2010 | 2 Comments

In a short while YouTube will be updating the video section of their website. At first when I saw it I was a bit taken back, it is very simple and a lot less cluttered than it is currently. YouTube is now full of ajax!

The image above has the old version on the left and the new version on the right. The main differences are that the video is much more prominent, the video also now has a grey background behind it which makes you focus more on the video.

A big notable difference with this new update is that the old 5 star rating system is now gone, instead it has been replaced with two thumbs, thumbs up for "I like this", thumbs down for "I dislike this". Originally when you thumbed up a video it would automatically add it to your favourites, I and most other people did not like this, because usually when you watch a video online you would rate it but not favourite it, with the auto favourite method your favourites box would be too overcrowded with videos you do not "love"! Now they have rectified this and you have to separately rate and favourite a video :D.

Another nice feature on the new video page is a auto-play feature, there used to be a version of the auto-play feature in playlists in the old version of the video page but it was a little less obvious. Now however it is located on the bottom right of the video box. If you are watching a playlist, the next video will start immediately after the current one playing ends. The auto-play also works for all your favourites and your subscriptions. I like how it works with subscriptions because when you have multiple new videos you save time by not having to click back all the time!

And finally they have added a great feature. If you are currently watching a video and you want to browse for more, you can now keep watching the video while searching at the same time! Just type something into the search box, hit enter, and the video you are watching just slides to the left and becomes smaller and you can watch the video while you search! From the results that are displayed you can add as many videos as you want to a queue and then go back to the video page and the queued videos will play after the current one! You can also save the queue (as a playlist) to watch back later.

So my impression on it is that it is a great change for YouTube, it shows that they still have interest, and this new improvement will improve page load speed and most likely save YouTube some extra bandwidth! Once YouTube release their new HTML 5 video player which they are working on, YouTube will be extremely fast, videos load instantly in the new HTML 5 Player!

If you want to try out the new YouTube video page, Click Here.

YouTube Beta Testing New User Profile Pages

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: May 14th, 2009 | 2 Comments

As usual i like to let everyone know about the new things happening around YouTube, its not even like i use YouTube a lot for uploading videos i just use if for watching videos, i just like to keep in the know of what is changing with the YouTube site :D Anyway here is the latest change that YouTube soon hope to be implementing across every YouTube users profile.

It is a complete revamp on the appearence of how your user profile will look. They have already made changes within the last year in relation to users profile pages by making the width of the page wider to enable having a more widescreen video on the profile page. Now however they are going to scrap the old style user pages and replace them with a more fresh look.

When looking at how the new profiles will look, it makes me wonder since they differ so much from the general appearence of the rest of the site, if they will soon be releasing a complete re-design?

There are however a few main reasons on why they have decided to change the appearence of the user profile pages. They have now made it that the featured video is on the top left of the page with a list of the users uploaded videos, favourite videos and playlists on the right hand side of the video box.  When you choose to watch one of the videos the user uploaded or favourited then it will just simply change the video that is in the featured box.

This is done so that when someone is watching a video they will spend a bit more time on a users page and perhaps watch a few more of there videos :D, it is a good idea so that more of your videos you upload might finally get that recognition it deserves :D.

They are also now impleting a new method of editing how you edit the look of your profile. They have added a new channel editing toolbar at the top of the page so that you can choose which modules to include in your site or not. Also you can edit your profiles title and add some tags to your profile, And of course you can edit the colour scheme of the profile live on the page without having to constantly flip back and foward to and from your channel page to see how it actually looks :D This is a great addition to the page , it makes customization a lot easier :D.

You can now also move the different modules on your profile by simply clicking the arrows in the direction you want to move the modules too :D, yet another method to try and make channel customization a little easier :D.

I think that this new channel editor bar takes up a little too much of the screen, it would be better if it would auto hide and a little tab was just there so that when you want to edit your page it will only appear then by hovering or clicking on it :D Other than that problem i think that the new idea of changing th channels layout is great and look foward to when they are finished with all the new modifications they are adding.

Also as a note the channels are in BETA testing so this means that things can go wrong such as modules not appearing and videos not working on your channel, this is why it is slightly hidden away and not so straight foward to sign up to the beta test! So far i have not noticed any problems, and if you do find any you can simply report them to the develpoers since they have set up a mini blog to keep you updated on new fixes and changes they have implemented and also they encourage you to input your opinion or any faults you expierence.

You can have a look at the new channel design in action over on my YouTube channel page.

And now this is how you can implement this new beta test channel design, simply head over to www.youtube.com/super_seekrit and follow the simple one click of a button :D And they also keep a copy of how your profile used to look like in case you dont like the new design, so you have nothing to loose with trying it out :P.

YouTube Redesign

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: April 2nd, 2009 | 2 Comments

On April 16th there will be a new design released for YouTube.  The reason that they have decided to change YouTube is so that they can better monitize there site and catch up to industy standards.  The major thing that will change on YouTube now will be the menu bar, they are completly changing how you navigate the site, they are doing away with the current menu bar and will be replacing it with one that will closely resemble the Hulu menu bar.

Instead of having Videos, Channels & Community they will now have four tabs: Movies, Music, Shows and Videos. The first threee tabs are going to have premium content , just like hulu, which will offer tv-shows and movies, although YouTube have yet to announce what they will be broadcasting in these sections, they say that they are in the process of setting out new contracts.

Also in the final tab 'Videos' this will house the current YouTube as you know it, they are cramming all there current content into that tab, so all user created content will now be under the video tab away from the main public view, this is YouTube trying to break free from there current trend of amateur and semi-professional videos.

And now the videos will be interrupted for in-video ads, just like hulu. And the video player should be receiving a new design, much like that too of hulu which will offer you the option to 'dim the lights', this is when the background page is darkend and the focus is directed more to the video, YouTube have been experimenting with this over the previous months and it has been popping up on certain videos. Also the video timeline will display little lines to show where the ads will be showing throughout the video.

The release of this was originally scheduled for next week but has been pushed back to April 16th, there was no explanation given on why this was done but it is thought that it is due to ongoing negociations with potential partners.

This new upgrade is considered the "Hulification Of Youtube", very true since most of the changes are coming from design techniques that hulu use. I think it is about time that they are going all out with YouTube now however i think that they might end up neglecting there current customer base more and focus on premium content, now they are really just thinking of there pockets and not there online community. Hopefully the premium videos they add will not be limited to the US, like hulu do, hopefully YouTube will make them available throught the rest of the world.