More YouTube Layout Changes Coming, This Time For Your Channel

When YouTube rolled out its massive site overhaul back in December, it was met with plenty of derision, much of it aimed at the perceived user-unfriendly nature of the new design. Forthcoming updates, however, could make scorned creators feel a little bit better about the new YouTube. A blog post on the YouTube Creator Blog reveals potential changes to the way users view channels throughout the entire site.

As we mentioned back when the new YouTube first went up, the redesign is all about subscribers. As the Creator Blog post notes, the addition of a “subscription guide” to the YouTube homepage caused users to subscribe to twice as many channels as before. Presumably, the proliferation of the guide throughout YouTube only increased the number of subs  (I know it did for me.) By making further changes to the guide, YouTube hopes to promote more of the same, in line with the company’s new engagement-based goals.

While we don’t know what exactly the changes will be, a quick trip to the guide reveals some answers. Right now, when you click on a channel in the guide, a small preview pops up, featuring a few recent videos and an easy access subscribe button.

We can expect this user interface to be replaced with one that eschews recent content in favorite of whatever a channel has chosen to feature. When I click on Psy‘s preview, I currently see some uninteresting live performances. After the changes go into effect, I expect that sorta-popular video he made to be front and center.

In general, expect any new channel to revolve around subs, which is great news for creators looking to attract fans to their pages. As for users, some of us will be happy to utilize more tools for discovering new channels. The dissenters will be like people who threaten to move to Canada: they may say they’re going to leave YouTube for good, but something tells me this will not be the case.