14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube is officially rolling out its new redesign to everyone. The big emphasis is on the new homepage and channel pages, but the entire site has been updated, with new colors, buttons and so on.
The main goal of the redesign is one that YouTube has been working towards for a long time, making YouTube more of a destination, turning the homepage into a place that people visited to find new stuff and making channels more analogous to real TV channels.
"More and more, behind every great video is a great Channel, and with our announcement last month that more of them are coming to YouTube, we want to make it easier for you to find and keep tabs of what you want to watch," YouTube explained.
A brand new Facebook-inspired homepage
YouTube is now rolling out a completely new homepage. Not only is it a visual upgrade, the old homepage was really ugly, it finally focuses YouTube's idea of what the homepage should be.
It's partitioned in a traditional three-column layout. In many ways, it's very similar to the Facebook or Google+ feed page. On the left, there are the channels you've subscribed too as well as two channels for your Google+ and Facebook friends.
Other custom sections such as Trending or Popular, as well as things like Watch Later are accessible as well. All of these should provide a starting point for exploring and discovering new videos.
They also function like filters, or sections, just like on Facebook, since selecting any of them updates the video list in the middle, which serves as a News Feed of sorts. Finally, the third column is reserved for recommended or featured videos.
Channel templates and a new look
The channel pages have also gotten a revamp. Channel owners now have several layout templates to choose from, depending on the type of the channel. For example, the Blogger template features a reverse chronological list of videos from a playlist, along with a featured video, while the Network template lists videos from different channels.
The site itself has gotten a revamp, inspired by the Cosmic Panda experiment, with new colors, new fonts, buttons and slight nip and tucks all around.
