YouTube Channel Redesigns
The first of many rumored changes taking place today on YouTube has happened to the channel pages. Go here to see an example of the new channel page layout.
YouTube’s new channel layout redesign looks quite slick compared to the channels we’ve had for the past few years. Less boxy, less separated, the channel page now feels like one solid entity. And this is only the beginning of the beta stage for the redesign.
YouTube was also smart enough to make this an open beta, for all users, not a select group of partners or friends of the editors. Round of applause there. If you’d like to try out the new channel design, click here (you can opt out at any time and revert back to your old channel design).
Redesigning your channel and need help? Check out my Free Resources for Your Next Profile Design.
YouTube has started a new blog dedicated to the progress of the channel redesign. You can check this blog for known bugs and issues, to leave suggestions and feedbacks, or to just keep up on what’s in development for the new channel designs. Click here to visit that blog, and feel free to leave your thoughts about the redesign.
I’ve only been using the new YouTube channel design for about five hours, but so far I like it. When you change your settings, you can now see the effects in real-time on your actual channel page, as opposed to the approximate preview we had before. In the future, I believe the modules will be drag-and-droppable to rearrange/design your channel any way you see fit, like they are on the front page of YouTube. So I also look forward to that.
As for the rest of the changes rumored to be taking place today, I guess just… stay tuned.
22 Responses to “YouTube Channel Redesigns”
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April 16th, 2009 at 5:40 am
As I get deeper into customizing it, I’m starting to like it more and more. There are a bunch of tweaks that YouTube needs to make, but I’m quite happy with the new designs so far.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:41 am
From a channel holder perspective it’s awesome its so much easier to customize. however there’s no option to change to a custom video for the autoplayer
From a channel viewer perspective however it’s pretty blocky and rather claustrophobic
Just my 2c
now where is the so call corporate changes that were supposed to happen?
April 16th, 2009 at 5:45 am
I think the new channel design looks kinda nice
However a few things I would like to note
1. I don’t like how the videos on the right appear next to your main video, it would be better if they followed there old design and move the video a little to the right and move the info about the user up next to the main video. That would seem to make sense to me. I want to know about the person I am watching before I go on to watch more of there videos
2. The design looks a little cramped, it needs more padding between boxes!
I do how ever like how it looks more like a social-network now (kinda reminds me a little of FaceBook) I just wish you could drag and drop boxes (like on FaceBook) to where you want them, that would be a pretty neat feature to have!
One final thing, I created myself a lovely background yesterday (my very first back ground) you can see it by visiting here http://www.youtube.com/lukeb3000 I just wondered does anyone know if by switching to the new design, will it cover up / break my lovely new background?
April 16th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Alan, some great tips. I for one can’t wait to get home tonight and play around with the new design!
April 16th, 2009 at 5:59 am
I really like the new layout for channels, I’ve always thought it was silly to have to exit the channel to view the videos.
I’m hoing as they work out the kinks that perhaps the related videos will become a tab at the top along with “uploads, playlists, etc” so that we won’t have to navigate too far to see all those videos/comments as well.
If this is what they had in store for us good for them!
April 16th, 2009 at 6:32 am
I like it for the most part. But, as dctcool pointed out I can’t change the featured video. Before I switched to the new layout I put your “The Day the YouTubes Died?! music video” up there and now I can’t change it… not that it is a bad thing
April 16th, 2009 at 6:44 am
haha i happened to look at your channel page before reading your blog and was wondering what was up.
I just wanna get animated gif banners back!
April 16th, 2009 at 6:55 am
thanks for the heads-up, Alan. A change is always nice.
Oh, and i checked out your Profile Design Resources page. Good tips there.
Sean.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:37 am
I really like the new beta channel setup that is going on.
I think it is so much easier to use as well that you can check on the rest of the site.
Great to know
Barry
April 16th, 2009 at 8:35 am
I think they needed to test this more before making it public with some of the bugs present.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Argh. The new design does exactly what it shouldn’t do: It effectivly hides the (video) comment section, which is a vital part of Youtube!
April 16th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I’m sure you’ll get a lot of this, but:
The new design looks fine, but, as you’d only expect based on the new Youtube™ corporate model, it blocks off the community. Where’s the room for video responses, comments, and ratings? Ratings should be right up there on the video and “view video responses” and “comments section” should be links posted, whether done through javascript applications or through a separate window.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
i posted a comment on their beta blog. here are my words:
the rounded corners are neat–it’s about damn time. the “load-on-the-same-page” feature is also keen.
as for the rest of the “overhaul”, please consider the following before making a site-wide update:
1) each section of the channel should a “module”; users should be able to position, align, and hide sections on their channels at will.
2) keep the topmost “YouTube Bar” the same as it is, pre-Beta. it’s much cleaner and has a smaller footprint.
3) keep customization items like “transparency level”, “organize videos”, custom colors (links, text, boxes), etc.
and, most importantly
4) give users the ability to choose between “Classic” and “Neo” Channel Layouts.
whatever you do, YouTube, please, oh please don’t pull a FaceBook! keep it real, like MySpace, and let the USERS DECIDE.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I actually like this change to YouTube, I’ll see about the others …
-Julian “ItTakesII”
April 16th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
[...] April 16th has come and gone, and the only change we’ve seen from YouTube have been the channel redesigns I posted about earlier [...]
April 16th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Wow I REALLY like the new channel redesign. My favorite part is probably the fact that you can see the entire list of uploads a user has in one single list, instead of going to a different pages. That gets tedious if someone has, say, 150 videos.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:15 am
So… wait. I think this is the end of us getting payment for ads.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
are the updates not happening outside of the US?
April 18th, 2009 at 10:36 am
So far the changes I’ve noticed simply offer access to professional content, but they don’t exactly crowd out other content. Of course, this could just be a way of getting a foot in the door without a lot of serious protest, but it seems a little paranoid to assume the worst…
April 19th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
I can’t change my main video. Does anyone know how to? Please help me out.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:06 am
Russell Albert has it right. I really want to move my modules around and I REALLY miss my transparency option.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:26 am
What I want to know is how to creat links to twitter, my blog, etc., like the “pros” have in their new channels. I don’t see any way of doing it during the edit… is this something only certain people get to have?