New YouTube Homepage Launches

We’ve been hearing all about this new YouTube homepage for months and months it seems. It’s been available to those who felt like taking the steps to get it early for a couple weeks.

Now, Google has officially launched it. Go to YouTube.com. The page feels much more personalized, and really places a great deal more emphasis on YouTube as a social entity – something I’ve been long surprised that Google hasn’t done more of.

It also comes with those new channels that have been in the news a number of times, as part of YouTube’s renewed focus on high quality video content.

“Given the homepage’s new focus on helping you find and organize your favorite Channels, we would be remiss if we didn’t update the look and feel of the Channels themselves,” the company says. “Today we’re launching an improved Channel design focused on what matters most: helping users find great videos. As different uploaders have different goals, we’ve created new Channel templates to meet your needs whether you produce one video a week or have thousands of videos for a fan to browse. Some partners have even uploaded videos talking about the features, or giving tips on how they’re taking advantage of the new design. To learn how to opt-in to and test this new Channel design, check out our help center.”

“To bring the new homepage and Channels designs together we’ve also applied a fresh coat of digital paint across the whole site,” Google adds. “In July, we unveiled an experimental design called Cosmic Panda. We’ve used your feedback to improve our overall design, and today, we’re presenting a cleaner and simpler YouTube, with a consistent gray background, bigger video thumbnails and a more streamlined watch page.”

Here’s a video highlighting the changes:

I wasn’t one of the ones that implemented the new interface early, but just browsing at it quickly, I can tell this is going to make the home page much more relevant on a personal basis, and is going to inspire people to subscribe to a lot more YouTube channels and gain exposure to more personally relevant video content.

Not to be overly dramatic, but this looks like what YouTube should have been a long time ago.

There are 12 Comments. Add Yours.

RajanRufus
December 1, 2011 at 6:41 pm

Hi, now the new youtube home page looks good and it seems to be some what advanced than the old one. Now its easy to get the required videos.
- Chris Crum
  December 2, 2011 at 11:25 am
  
  I personally think it’s a huge improvement in terms of content discovery.
Maziyar
December 1, 2011 at 8:09 pm

Where is my Friend Activity? I want to see what videos my friends are Liking, Favoriting, I don’t see any bulletins. Where is the Friend Activity.
- Chris Crum
  December 2, 2011 at 11:30 am
  
  They seem to placing more emphasis on Google+ friends (and even Facebook). Google’s goal is for Google+ to be the social glue of all of its products. Having YouTube friends separate from Google friends is counter-productive to this strategy, so it make sense that they would put more focus on Google+. That’s not going to sit well with everybody, particularly those that have put a lot into developing relationships on YouTube itself over the years, but it does seem to be the direction Google is headed in.
  
  They still have the friends functionality and everything, but it does seem to be less emphasized now in favor of Google+.
Internet Marketing
December 2, 2011 at 3:11 am

Looks very appealing and more friendly….

Thanks,
WebTrooperz – Internet Marketing Services
JimtheBob
December 2, 2011 at 3:36 am

I really don’t care much about many of the changes, the new added features mostly don’t apply to me, my one gripe is that youtube took away a feature from the old homepage. Old videos, that I have watched, and will never watch again constantly stream onto my homepage (as they did with the old youtube) and I can no no longer hide them. Before it was simple, click the ‘x’ in the corner, and now my page is flooded with tons of things I don’t want recommended to me (I have an adblocker for that garbage) and tons of things that I’ve watched before.

I understand youtube’s desire to make more advertising money and make access easier, but removing features is what always gets people angry about change.
Bryan Quinn
December 2, 2011 at 8:35 am

A few improvements but nothing special and could have been done sooner. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s updated soon.
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December 7, 2011 at 9:37 am

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tortuguis
December 9, 2011 at 1:06 pm

Hi!! is Great! Thanks!!
Kamaeni
December 16, 2011 at 1:55 am

Beautiful page
andrew
April 6, 2012 at 9:31 pm

I do not know what these other commuters are talking about.
the new designs is garbage. It is intended to destroy random viral chains. This is because of the 2008 presidential election was change by youtube.
You tube has destroyed the social networks.
No more friends. no view counts, no ratings, no subscribers list or subscribed lists. not tags lists.
also when a search is done youtube partners come up first. each channel tab has the same things as the other but different layouts. each tab has my videos and that is it. I get to network with my self and see what videos I have watch or commented about. Sad. Time to go to the Chinese “YOUKU” site.
Sooner or later a new site will come along and youtube will be over just lie myspace.

Why? control!
andrew
April 6, 2012 at 9:44 pm

I do not know what these other commenters are talking about.
The new designs is garbage. It is intended to destroy random viral chains. This is because of the 2008 presidential election was changed by youtube.
Youtube has destroyed the social networks.
No more friends. no view counts, no ratings, no subscribers list, subscribed lists. Not tags lists.
Also when a search is done, the youtube partners come up first.
Each channel tab has the same things as the other tabs but with different layouts. Each tab has my videos and a little bit of others. I get to network with my self and see what videos I have watch or commented about.
Things that were easy are now complicated. This means less involvement.
Sad. Time to go to the Chinese “YOUKU” site or other Chinese sites like Todou.com which is amazing.
Even” Twitvid”is better than youtube.
Sooner or later a new site will come along and youtube will be over just lie myspace. The people of google just do not get it, how many people will bail once word of a better site gets out. If they were smart they would allow people to choose between the original, the 2010 and the most recent redesign but no, just like the rest of America it cannot see past it’s own nose.

Why? Control!
I cannot wait till youtube is dead like Wang computers and Myspace.