Major Improvements for YouTube

YouTube, the online video sharing service owned by Google, received an impressive pack of updates able to improve the functionality of the official website. Take for example the homepage of the service that is now displaying channels and groups, allowing users to organize and navigate through the entire collection of clips. Although the company didn't mention it, a new option is also displayed on the main page of the video service, the "Most popular channels this week" function allowing users to view the most visited categories of the page.

"You can set a transparency level for all the modules on your channel page from 50-95% in the My Account section. You'll also notice that channel browse pages have a new way of displaying their wares: there's the channel icon and some stats, with a larger thumbnail of the most recent video," the YouTube team presented another improvement added to the video service.

The pack of updates also contains an improvement concerning the relations between users because you're now able to subscribe to the videos uploaded by a certain member directly from his profile page. This section was also redesigned, allowing users to view thumbnails with the entire collection of clips uploaded by the member, as well as the latest movie presented on the center of the screen. The profile page is now very similar to the new channels designed by YouTube for several partnerships such as NBA, Chelsea FC and BBC.

The video service acquired by Google in October 2006 for $1.6 billion was recently assaulted by a huge number of lawsuits, accusing the company of copyright infringement. Although there were a lot of complaints, the most important case concerns Viacom, the owner of MTV and Comedy Central requiring $1 billion in damages.