14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube is rolling out the revamped, personalized homepage to all users. The new homepage had been available as opt-in for a month and the trial went well enough for YouTube to now make it the default homepage for everyone.
Many users hardly ever visit the YouTube homepage so the revamped one is aimed at making users stick around for longer by providing content that is relevant to them specifically.
"Recently we opened up the experimental homepage to anyone who wanted to try it out. Millions of users opted in and now have this new version set as their homepage," YouTube wrote.
"Many of the people who tried the experimental homepage filled out our feedback form. While not everyone loved it, most people thought the new homepage was better than the old homepage," it added.
The new homepage gets rid of some less used modules and introduces a news feed of sorts, combining subscriptions, friend activity, recommendations and so on.
Other, more general features have been pushed to the side, literally, spotlight and featured videos are now listed on the right sidebar. There is also a trending videos section, reminiscent of Twitter's similar feature.
"After countless user studies and community surveys, one thing came in loud and clear: the homepage in its current form doesn’t mean much to most of you, and could be more personally relevant. So the goal of this experiment was to put more of an emphasis on 'videos for you'," YouTube explained.
YouTube acknowledges that users may miss some features that are now gone from the homepage, but the experience should be better overall, it says.
The hope is to drive up usage, keep people coming back to the homepage and watching more videos. YouTube is doing a number of things to increase the number of videos people watch and the time they spend on the site, better playlists and recommendations for example, and generally streamlining the experience to keep users interested.