CosmicPanda

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: July 9th, 2011 | 0 Comments

Over the last few weeks Google have been updating everything! All their websites from Google, to Maps to their new social network Google+ & the new look Gmail, everything has changed and i was wondering if they would touch YouTube. Today i saw that Google have been working on a huge overhaul for YouTube and from what i have seen so far, its a great update. The new update is code-named 'CosmicPanda', i have had a quick look at the main new features which come with this next update to YouTube. There are 3 main parts that i would use with the new update and they have introduced huge GUI changes. The sections which have changed the most are user profiles, the video page where you actually watch the videos and then they have also updated playlists slightly.

Each user as you know have their own channel, if you are a partner with YouTube you are allowed to change the default thumbnail of each video to any image you like, with the new update to the channels it takes advantage of these pictures, the channel page shows the latest videos uploaded just by displaying the thumbnails of the videos. There are a few different options you can have for your page now, one is to simply show all the video thumbnails, another is to show a list of  you playlists. Below is how the old YouTube channels look with the new version below it (click them to see a bigger version!)

  A huge difference as you can see, but looking through other YouTube channels will give you a better feel of the other options that are now available to YouTube users! If you haven't already noticed, Google have also updated the navigation bar, its much more simple looking.

The page itself where you watch all your videos has been given a big update. The video player bar is now black along with a large black strip going the full width of the screen behind the video, the black strip works on the same principle of the 'turn the light off' feature a lot of sites use, it makes you focus more on the content they want you to, such as the video. The related videos to the right of the page have also been changed to a list of related thumbnails. Images old and new below! (click them to see a bigger version!)

  The third big change that has been made to the site is a feature of the video play page too, it is the playlist feature. Instead of having an annoying video strip along the bottom of your screen as a pop up, it has now been change to a video strip below the video. Images below old and new (click them to see a bigger version!)

I really like the changes that have been made. Another great thing that you can now do is when you are watching a video, you can click into your account page or go onto the channel of the video you are watching or onto another persons page who has a left a comment on the video you are watching, if you do thing the video you are currently watching will continue to play at the top left of the page! After you are done browsing you can click the video again and it will bring you back to the video page! One of the greatest features of this update i think, but it would be great if it worked the same way if you try to search, at the moment it does not allow it.

A great change for YouTube, you can read about these features on Googles support fourms. You can also opt in yourself if you want to have a good look at this new update, all you have to do is go to http://youtube.com/cosmicpanda and click Try it Out!

Bebo, will it shut down?

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: April 7th, 2010 | 1 Comments

AOL are now beginning to see that the investment they made into the social network, Bebo, was a big mistake. So much now that they are either going to shut the site down or look for a new buyer, but it will be unlikely that they will make a profit if they sell it.

Two years ago AOL bought Bebo for 850 million dollars! A lot of money, but back then Bebo was the number one social network in Ireland and the UK. Since then though it seems like Bebo remained pretty static, not a lot changed and it soon became more of a social network for young teens. Having such a younger audience does not always appeal to advertisers because they are less likely to make money from their advertisements.

Other social networks such as Facebook suddenly took over in the past year and with a lot of people signing up to use Facebook they just lost interest in Bebo.

I don't use Bebo anymore, I might log in once every so often but I do not actually use it for talking to friends. Here is a little graph of recent stats for various social networking sites, you can see the decline in Bebo over the past year, almost a 50% drop in unique visits!

I do think that it would be unfortunate to see bebo close, i think that with the right owner it could be turned around but it would require a lot of work. It should be more slimmed down, the content is just too bulky on the site, all other sites seem to be going with the trend of slimming down there sites. Facebook has a nice plain and simple look to it and so too does YouTube, with it's recent upgrade of it's video page it is even more simplistic!

There is however always new and better services coming out and if the current sites do not keep with the times then they are bound to fizzle out like Bebo, when Twitter was launched, Facebook brought out a new, what's on your mind feature, which is the same as what twitter has, by adding this feature Facebook managed to keep their members. Bebo did bring out a new feature like this but it was too late and also it didnt incorporate into the site as well as it did with Facebook.

For Bebo to add that feature they had to make a new "Home" section to their site where you could see recent changes and the new status changes of users (the twitter-like feature).

For now Bebo is still here, by the end of next month (May 2010) we will see if it will close down or be sold as that is when the company's strategic evaluation will end.

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.