Remember that big redesign YouTube launched in December? Granted, you’ve probably seen it several times today already, but in case not, YouTube redesigned its homepage so that its overall look would reflect the design changes that have been rolled out across Google products. More specifically, the update brought tighter integration with Google+, more personalized video discovery and viewing, and a whole mess of updates to channels.
The redesign focused on filtering channels in a way that would enable users to watch sets of related videos in one sitting, starting with a random video that they happen to love, and going on to discover and follow content from that particular curator, and video jockeys like them. The idea was to be able to easily aggregate all those followed channels on a personalized homepage that constantly updates with videos that you’ll actually want to watch.
Based on the results YouTube shared today, it thinks the redesign is having the desired effect, as daily unique visits to channels have increased by 60 percent and daily net subscriptions are up 50 percent since December.
With channel engagement and subscribing on the up and up, YouTube says that its ready to take the next step in the redesign process it began in December. This means that all channels, across the site, are going to be updated to the new layout, or one of four templates customized to their creators.
As you may remember, those four templates include:
- The Blogger template: A featured video, a reverse chronological list of videos from 1 playlist of your choosing, playlists, and other Channels.
- The Creator template: A featured video, featured playlists, and other Channels.
- The Network template: A featured video and featured Channels
- The Everything template: A featured video, featured playlists, and featured Channels
YouTube is also adding some new features that it believes will help users stay more engaged with channels, including the “Channel Feed,” which will display all videos uploaded to a particular channel, as well as “playlists and Liked videos across YouTube.”
The goal, the company says, is to “make it clear what you’ll get if you subscribe,” because, once you do subscribe, the feed will be published to your homepage so that you can stay on top of all the new content coming out of your favorite channels.
YouTube also said that it has incorporated a number of feature requests from users, including the ability to feature content more prominently, resulting in a “Featured Tab” with updated templates and search; making Favorites more accessible, which the team has made a customizable part of each channel; and a simple way to add Google+ profiles to channels.
YouTube creators can check out tips on sprucing up channels here, and YouTube’s blog post on the announcement here.
Updating…
