#cosmic panda

[zethsgraphix]

look at this theme :DDDD

yay

[youtubegazette]

Experimental YouTube Homepage Redesign: A Step in the Right Direction?

^ The redesign offers a simpler format, a cleaner aesthetic and new features

[This weeks Gazette TV will be posted on Monday the 27th because of reasons]

It's been unofficially available for a little under a week now but had received little analysis beyond a basic reporting of its existence until YouTuber Hank Green  posted a review of it on his second channel earlier today. 

You can take a look for yourself by following the instructions listed here.

Cosmic Panda

I think it's safe to say that it can't go down much worse than the last redesign "Cosmic Panda" which was labelled a "catastrophe" by Daily Dot writer Fruzsina Eördögh.

Cosmic Panda was also cited as one of the main reasons behind last months #saveyoutube campaign.

Leader Onision called it "absolutely disgusting" and along with others cited it as one of the reasons behind a recent drop in views to the new videos of prominent YouTube partners.

So how big are the differences between Cosmic Panda and this experimental redesign?

What's New?

One of the most popular features and probably the most missed is the ability to simply remove videos you don't want to watch from your subscription feed via a little X next to a thumbnail.

Well it's back and it's brought a friend too.

Now whenever you watch a video it doesn't simply disappear from your sub feed but instead an opaque grey filter appears over the thumbnail with the word "Watched" clearly written over it. Previously the video simply disappeared. 

Missed Videos

Probably the handiest of the new features is a sidebar with a list of the channels a user is subscribed to and a number next to each entry detailing how many videos by that channel the user hasn't watched, presumably backdated only to the point in time when the user subscribed to that channel.

As well as being useful to viewers it may go some way to assuaging partners fears about their videos being missed.

It allows viewers to know instantly whether they've missed a video without actually having to first remember that they haven't seen a video from so and so in a while and then going to their channel page and checking.

Something which is perhaps a bit much to ask of someone who may just be an occasional viewer of that persons content. 

What's the Same?

At this point in the redesign (and keep in mind that it's still experimental and subject to change) everything is still in the same place.

That means the drop down from your username and all the links it contains, the recommended videos, the sub feed and menu bar that goes across the top.

That most controversial of boxes, the sub box, also remains unchanged. Most likely it will be incorporated into the new aesthetic at a later date.

^ YouTube circa 2008

Simplification

Overall what we're seeing is a simplification of the existing design and the adoption of a much cleaner aesthetic.

The current homepage is very busy and crowded with a lot of different (and small) thumbnails, pieces of text and menus. Each demanding the viewers attention; ultimately this can mean that the eye, overwhelmed, stops paying attention almost entirely and focuses solely on what it came for, the subscription feed.

To the detriment of everything else on the page.

It's certainly not the vision of a 2008 era homepage that perhaps many in the #saveyoutube camp were hoping for but it's a vast improvement over the current manifestation and goes a long way to improving a lot of the problems we've all been talking about.

Statement

When asked for comment by tech site Engadget a YouTube spokesperson said that 

"With more videos coming to YouTube every minute we're always experimenting with ways to help people more easily find, watch and share the videos that matter most to them. As always, we'll consider rolling changes out more broadly based on user feedback on these experiments."

So there you have it folks, if you like the smell of what YouTube's cooking be sure to let them know. Maybe don't mention Google+; I hear they're kind of touchy about that.

[fur24]

Right on Greg! This madness really does need to stop, it's starting to get ridiculous! Us YouTubers work so hard for what we have, and it's being taken away from us as if it's nothing!

[t-ix-blog]

Переключение размера видео как в Cosmic Panda

В новом интерфейсе пропала кнопочка большого увеличения видео, оставили только маленький и средний.

Этот скрипт добавляет кнопки смены размера.

[nickeggplant]

things that are bad about the new YouTube channels:

videos are harder to get to

you can't watch every video on on the channel page, only the featured one

you can't interact with the featured video on the channel page (i.e. favorite/like the video, view video info, share the video, flag the video)

you cannot view all the channel comments, just the most recent 40. the rest are completely inaccessible, even to the channel owner

you cannot view subscribers. only the subscriber count. you cannot even view who your own subscribers are.

you cannot view other people's subscriptions, no matter what

I'm not a partner, so I don't really know anything about this, but that text box that partners could add to their pages that they usually added links, additional information, and etc. appears to be completely gone

where the hell did the moderator module go?

and the "ask your audience"?

and "event dates"?

there isn't as much look customization: you're stuck with the black and grey for most of your channel. the only real customization you have is your background

everything is separated into different sections you have to click to get to. before, you could see everything on one page. you just had to scroll down. now you have to click to see all the info. you have to click to see all the featured channels. you have to click to "load 10 more videos." you have to click to get to the feed, and click twice more to get to the channel comments. before, they were all on one handy page.

in summary, it feels like a lot of features of the channels have been stripped down or removed completely. these new channels... don't seem like an update at all? it just seems like they've reduced the functionality of the channels. the only good thing I can find about the new channels is the ability to add links to different sites and profiles of yours. that's it. that's the only thing I like about the new channels. but it isn't worth the decreased functionality, man. so I'm keeping my channel on the old design for as long as I can.

[eccentricintexas]

[incompetentqueen]

NOOOO I THOUGHT I WAS SAFE! :( the new youtube just took over my cosmic panda *sob*