New YouTube Changes December 2012: A More Personalized Experience

Back in July of this year, we highlighted a few YouTube Analytics changes. Like most Google products, though, YouTube is ever-evolving, so we’re back with more recent YouTube updates that may impact your video-viewing experience. If you haven’t had a chance to explore the new features or just want a quick overview, keep reading.

According to YouTube, the newest site design reflects the transition from a video-based site to a channels-based site. These new design changes were also made to encourage more subscriptions, discovery, engagement, and social interaction. Quite simply, YouTube wants to learn what users like and provide them with a steady stream of personalized content. The most obvious recent changes follow the video recap.

Found Video Recap

The YouTube Guide

One major change YouTube made is adding the Guide section to every single page, not just the home page. This allows you to watch channel videos and recommended videos based on your subscriptions at any point, helping prevent the dreaded “How did I end up here?” feeling. For instance, I started out watching a video from Google Webmaster, which was definitely relevant to my job. Somehow, though, I ended up watching “M.E.T.H.O.D. Man” by Wu-Tang Clan, which was not actually that relevant. Lucky for me, I’ve subscribed to several work-related channels, so I easily clicked on my Guide and got back to GoogleBusiness. For video creators, this is good news, as subscribers will see their content more frequently, on every page.

Other December 2012 YouTube Changes

Other than adding the Guide to all pages, there are a few other updates. For instance, YouTube video pages no longer feature the title above the content, instead displaying it and social actions below the main video. Not necessarily the end of the world, since the title will still display in feeds and searches, but still a notable change. In my opinion, this change makes it more important to hook viewers right away with great-looking content, not just a catchy title.

Along with the title placement change, YouTube has also updated its mobile and tablet versions, so you can experience the new look and feel across multiple devices.

Summary

Ultimately, the new features that YouTube has implemented work together to provide a more predictive, personalized experience for users, and their ultimate goal is to get users to subscribe to specific channels and categories. Even though there were a few recommended videos and channels that missed the mark for Direct Online Marketing, there were also some that were right on target, and of course having access to our subscriptions’ content from any page was much more convenient than constantly navigating back to our home page feed. If you sometimes feel a little overwhelmed by all of the random, weird YouTube videos, check out the new features. They might help you discover more of the video content you actually want to watch.