YouTube’s new redesign

This past week YouTube have released its revamped website putting channels at the core of the service.

A channel is a list of video clips chosen by a specific YouTube member or celebrity. Channels are now displayed in a central column on the site's homepage resembling news feeds on social networks such as Facebook or Google+.

Experts say the redesign may mean people spend longer on the site, but some users have attacked the change.

YouTubers in uproar!

One week since its release the official “Get more into YouTube” clip explaining about the redesign now has 13,623 dislikes compared to its 4,035 likes.

The YouTube users have expressed their disapproval in the comments with the top comment saying “The new layout flat out sucks shame on YouTube” with most of the other comments follow suit.

Google (the site’s owner), have posted a blog saying that the new design was "focused on helping you discover a broader range of entertainment", but said there might be "further tweaks" depending on members' feedback.

The blog highlighted the fact that the site now offers deeper integration with Google+ and Facebook, allowing members to see what their friends have shared without leaving YouTube.

Google is also in the process of launching around 100 channels produced by celebrities and other well-known content providers. These channels are said to launch next year.

Google included that they now attract over 3 billion clip views per day.

The improvements

YouTube believe that this revamp will help make the site more “sticky”, keeping users on the website for longer.

They have also now jumped on board with Twitter and Facebook allowing users to see what videos are trending easily.

In my opinion the negativity towards the new design will be short-lived, similar reactions have came from changes to other sites such as Facebook which quickly faded away once people got used to it.